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UNITEtTctATES OF AMERICA. 



ROME AND ITALY 



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AT THE 



Opening of the (Ecumenical Council, 



DEPICTED IS TWELVE LETTERS 



WKITTEN FROM ROME TO A GENTLEMAN IN AMERICA, 



By EDMOND DE PRESSENSE, D.D., 

PASTOR OF THE EVANGEMCAL CHUBCH IN PAEIS, 

And author of " Tliistoire des trois premiers siecles de TEglise Chretienne,' 1 
" Jesus Christ, son temi s, son oevre et sa vie ,*' etc. 



TRANSLATED BY 

REV. GEORGE PRENTICE, A.M. 



■^♦^ 




New Vor\K: 
CARLTON & LANAHAN. 

SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS. 
CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

1870. 



<&- 



** 



^ 



Per lor maledizion si non si perde, 
Che non possa tornar l'eterno amore. 

Dante. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 
1870, by CARLTON & LANAHAN, in the Clerk's 
Office of the "District Court of the United States 
for the Southern District of New York. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 



The following Letters, furnishing a rapid pen 
photograph of the first impressions of a distinguished 
traveler on visiting Italy and Rome at the opening 
of the Council, are received by the American pub- 
lishers immediately from the author's hands. As 
fast as received they have been committed to type, 
and the earliest possible publication has succeeded 
the reception of the last Letter. They are not to be 
republished in Europe within several months after 
the present issue. The American reader, therefore, 
has the first view, presented by the author's artistic 
hand, of the varied scenes through which he passes. 

Pressense has attained a noble and growing repu- 
tation in both Europe and America as the leader of 
the conservative-progressive branch of French Prot- 
estantism, as well as by several valuable productions ; 
particularly his " Life of Christ," his " Religion and 
the Reign of Terror," and his " Early Days of Chris- 
tianity," the two former published, and the latter in 
process of publication, in both England and America. 
The first volume of the latter will appear in a few 



4 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

days from our own press. His principles and predi- 
lections, being on the side of freedom and progress, 
but averse to either political or religious destructiv- 
ism, are in peculiar sympathy with the spirit of sound- 
hearted American Protestantism. We cheerfully an- 
ticipate, therefore, that there are thousands in our 
country who will delight to survey from his stand- 
point the objects, characters, and events which he 
passingly portrays. 



TKAl^SLATOB'S NOTE 



When the dogma of the Immaculate Conception 
was proclaimed by the sole authority of the Pope, 
M. de Pressense declared that a formidable crisis 
was inevitable in the bosom of the Catholic Church. 
He affirmed that an act which so deliberately tram- 
pled on the rights of the entire Church, could 
not fail to awaken great alarm, and provoke obsti- 
nate resistance. This prediction was soon fulfilled. 
The most enlightened members of the Catholic com- 
munion have never accepted that dogma. But as 
they did not resist its promulgation with sufficient, 
energy, their bearing invited the Romish party to 
perfect its victory. This would be done if a General 
Council could be induced to decree that infallibility of 
the Pope which is plainly implied in the proclamation 
of the Immaculate Conception. The Council of the 
Vatican has it as its special mission, then, to surren- 
der the rights and powers of the Episcopacy into the 
hands of the Sovereign Pontiff'. It is pleasant and 
instructive to watch the preliminary movements and 
opening scenes of such a Council in the company of 
an observer so well informed and sagacious as M. de 
Pressense. 



6 TRANSLATORS NOTE. 

His book will possess a permanent value as a 
record of events and impressions on the eve of the 
Council, and also from the interesting discussions 
which he has interwoven with them. 

I have sought to render my version faithful to the 
original. That it always reflects the exact meaning 
of the author I am sure ; whether it fairly repre- 
sents the vigor and sparkle of his style I leave others 
to judge. 

George Prentice. 

Hyde Park, Mass., Feb. 16, 1810. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER T. 



Hints to the Eeader — Reflections on leaving Trance : her Political 
Condition ; her Interest in the Council — Father Hyacinthe — The Abhe 
Maret on the Infallibility of the Pope — A Sunday in the Alps — Lom- 
bardy : her Past and Present ; her Artistic Jewels — Umbria : her Type 
of Piety in the Middle Ages ; Scenery ; Political State and Art— Peru- 
gino and Eaphael — Assisi and St. Francis : his Spirit ; Order ; Errors ; 
Lessons to us; Legend; Tomb and its Treasures— Goethe's Fanati- 
cism — Hesitation of the Ultramontanists — The Invito Sacro with Com- 
ments Page 3.1 

LETTER II. 

A Glimpse at Rome : Like City like Citizens — A Chapter of Con- 
trasts : 1. The City and the Surrounding Desert ; 2. The Ancient 
Church of St. Clement and the Modern Churches ; 3. The Contrast of 
Quarters in Rome ; 4. The Contrast in Costumes ; 5. Pagan and Chris- 
tian Art ; 6. The Capuchins and the Scipios ; 7. Spiritual and Formal 
Religion ; 8. Rome and the Coming Change 33 

LETTER III. 

Three Pilgrims to Rome : Luther, Lamennais, Hyacinthe — Luther's 
Arrival in Rome : his Mysticism ; Moral Conflicts ; his Ideal Rome ; 
the Real Rome ; his Emancipation and Work — Lamennais : his Birth ; 
Early Life; Taking Orders; his Early Opinions; Book on Religious 
Indifference ; Conversion to Democracy ; Advocates the Separation of 
Church and State; ISAvenir; Intrigues of the Jesuits; Lamennais 
Appeals to the Pope ; Les Affairs de Rome ; Evasive Conduct of Rome ; 
Impatience of Lamennais ; the Encyclical of Gregory XVI. ; it con- 
demns him; the Shock; his Lapse into Skepticism; Influence on his 
Disciples ; Subsequent Career and Death — Father Hyacinthe : Birth 
and Education ; Eloquence ; Liberality ; First Warning ; Visit to 
Rome ; Growing Freedom ; Sermons on the Church ; Further Progress ; 
is sent to Rome; the Crisis; returns to Paris; Speech at the Peace 
Congress ; is Rebuked ; Letter to his Superior ; his Future — Interior 
Discipline of the Dominicans — Rome desires a Short Council — Assump- 
tion of the Virgin — Confidence of the Pope — Anniversary of the Battle 
of Mentana 56 



8 Contents. 

letter iv. 

THE ROMAN QUESTION. 

Peculiar Position of Rome : The Pope guarded "by Foreign Troops ; 
The Practical Phase of the Matter — The Origin of the Temporal Power- 
Its Security under the Old Regime — The Shock of the Revolution of 
1T93 — An Election Trick — Napoleon I. and the Papacy — Count d'Haus- 
sonville and Eather Thenier — The Pact of 1815 — The Revolution of 
1830— Its Consequences — Foreigners first Guard the Pope— 1847 and its 
Changes — Election of Pius IX. — His Position and Measures — The Pope 
in Exile — Intervention of the French — Craft of the Prince President — 
Return of the Pope — His Rule — The Italian Movement : Its Results — 
Withdrawal of the French — Garibaldi Advances on Rome — Return of 
the French — Arguments of the Catholics — The Near Close of the French 
Occupation Page 79 

LETTER V. 

Cause of the Uneasiness of the Romans — Modern Liberty and Theoc- 
racy—The Prince and the Pope — Pope Elected by Ecclesiastics — The 
Sacred College — The Conclave — The Congregations — The Courts of 
Law — The Signature — Gonsulta Sacra and the Robe — Trials not Public 
— Special Rights of the Clergy — The Police— Impunity of Crime — Con- 
spirators — The Prelacy — Clerical Establishments of Rome — Founda- 
tions, Masses, and Begging — The Press and the Censorship — Enforced 
Hypocrisy of the Romans — No Reform possible — Ignorance of the 
Masses— Higher Education— The Jesuits as Educators — Their Triumphs 
over History — A Roman Apologue — Singular Consequences of Theoc- 
racy — Approval of Theaters and Lotteries — A Suggestive Incident. 104 

LETTER VI. 

Religious Worship in Rome : its Magnificence Contrasted with the 
Primitive Type — Culmination of Roman Art at the Reformation— Its 
Previous Condition — Gothic Architecture and the Roman Churches — 
The Cathedral at Cologne and Saint Peter's — Transformation of Pagan 
Temples into Christian Churches — The same Contrast in Painting — Fra 
Bartolomeo — The Last Judgment of Michael Angelo and that of Fra 
Angelico — Raphael, Julius Romanus, and the Decline— Similar Phases 
in Church Music — Ancient and Modern Church Song — Church Music 
and the Reformation— Testimony of M. de Laprode — Defects of Prot- 
estant Worship — That of the Post- Apostolic Period — Ceremonies of 
Holy Week and Easter — Taking the Vail — Grotesque Appeals to the 
Populace— Mercenary Spirit of Catholic Worship — Its False Supernat- 
uralism — Its Absolute Idolatry — A Touching Ceremony 130 



Contents. 9 



LETTER VII. 

Preparations for the Council — Arrangements of the Counei] Hall- 
Sessions Secret— Name of the Council — Its Memorial Column — The 
Entertainment of the Members — Ceremonial of the Assembly — Prece- 
dence of the Members— Labors of the Preparatory Committees — Publi- 
cation of the Proceedings — The Proceedings to be in Latin — Confusion 
in its Pronunciation — Other Differences — French Bishops mainly Ultra- 
montanists — Chorus of Priests — The French Liberals : Bishop Dupan- 
loup, Prince de Broglie, xlbbe Noirlieu, and Professor Tassy — The 
American Prelates — Devotion of the Irish Bishops to Rome — Subserv- 
iency of the EDglish Bishops — The Belgians — The Austrian Martyrs — 
The German Liberals — The Demonstration at Eulda — The Letters of 
Janus— Reforms demanded — Dollinger on Papal Infallibility — Probable 
Conclusion on this Question Page 156 

LETTER VIII. 

Leading Actors in the Council— The Absentees — The Pope — Anto- 
nelli — Bishop Tosti — Archbishop Manning — Bishop Hoefele — Bishop 
Hanneberger— Cardinals Donnet and Bonnechose — Bishop Plantier — 
The Bishop of La Rochelle — Bishop D up anloup — Archbishop Darboy — 
Louis Veuillot, the Lay Delegate — Anticipations in Liberal Circles 185 

LETTER IX. 

At Naples — A Festival — The Bourbon Rule in Naples— Francis II. — 
Stains on the Cause of Liberty— Garibaldi's Capture of Naples — Meas- 
ures of Cavour — Justice of History — Present Irritation — Popular Liberty 
—Education — Philosophy — Religion — The Buffoon on the Stage and in 
the Pulpit — Brigandage — The Camorra — Perplexities of the new Gov- 
ernment — Italians in Politics — Evangelical Labors at Naples — Political 
and Religious Outlook of Latin Races— Pagan Naples— The Decline of 
Paganism— Revelations at Pompeii — Impure Gods, Gladiators, Slaves — 
Discoveries in Art— Manuscripts — The Victory of Christianity 212 

LETTER X. 

RECENT EXCAVATIONS AT ROME — THE PALACE OF THE OESARS AND 

THE CATACOMBS. 

Napoleon III. and Archaeology— Signor di Rossi— The Late and the 
Present Aspect of the Palace of the Caesars — Temple of Jupiter Stator 
— Cicero's House — Two Frescos — Christian Relics in the Palace — Im- 
portance of Christian Archaeology — Nature of its Disclosures — Rossi's 
Roma Sotteranea— Bossio's Explorations— Arringhi and Marchi— Ros- 
si's Method — The Catacombs used for Burial, not Worship — Three 



10 Contents. 

Periods in their History — Dates of Monuments — Christian and Pagan 
Burial — Symbols of the Christian Tombs — The Catacomb of Saint Cal- 
listus — Callistus Himself— Visit to the Catacomb — The Consecration of 
Labor — Testimony of the Catacombs on Catholicism and Protestantism, 
the Primacy of Peter, the Adoration of Mary, the Sacraments, the State 
of the Dead, the Invocation of Saints, the Canonical Books, and Image 
Worship Page 238 

LETTER XL 

The Council Chamber — Preliminary Session — An Unpleasant Incident 
and a Conversation — Bishop Dupanloup and M. Veuillot — The Opposi- 
tion — The Pope's Allocution in the Preliminary Session — Its Spirit— 
The Manifesto of the Civilta Cattolica — On the Eve of the Council — 
The Letters of Janus put in the Index — Wrath of the Liberals — Open- 
ing Ceremonies of the Council, with Comments — The Committees on 
Faith, Discipline, and the Eeligious Orders — Their Duties — Parleying 
Protestants — The True Issue — Unmeaning Distinctions — The False 
Supernatural 266 

LETTER XII. 

Another Contrast — The Oratorio of the Pontiff of the Immaculate 
Conception — Review of the Papal Army — Its Composition and Condi- 
tion — The Committee on Conciliation — Regulations of the Council — So- 
cial Life at Rome— The Expenses of the Council — Fruits of Mariolatry 
—Vexation of the Liberals— Their Policy— A Morning Ramble— The 
Bull of Excommunication — Comments— The Committees on Faith and 
Discipline — The Anti-Council — Its Follies and End — The True Anti- 
Council— Probable Success of the Ultramontanists — The Italian Govern- 
ment and its Difficulties— Protestant Missions— Savonarola— Needs and 
Hopes 298 



ROME, ITALY; 



AND THE 



(ECUMENICAL COUNCIL. 



-^•♦MS. 



LETTER I. 

Hints to the Reader — Reflections on leaving France : her Political 
Condition ; her Interest in the Council — Father Hyacinthe — The 
Abbe Maret on the Infallibility of the Pope — A Sunday in the Alps 
— Lombardy : her Past and Present ; her Artistic Jewels — Urn- 
bria: her Type of Piety in the Middle Ages; Scenery; Political 
State and Art — Perugino and Raphael — Assisi and St. Francis : 
his Spirit ; Order ; Errors ; Lessons to us ; Legend ; Tomb and its 
Treasures — Goethe's Fanaticism — Hesitation of the Ultramontanists 
— The Invito Sacro with Comments. 

Rome, Nov. 6, 1869. 

Dear Sir : — Permit me to remind you that I am 
to send you letters / that is, the lively, spontaneous 
expression of my impressions concerning this land 
of Italy, whose bare name suffices to arouse the 
imagination, and which has not lost the incompa- 
rable charm with which she has intoxicated all her 
visitors, and, on the eve of the Council which awak- 
ens so much disquietude, curiosity, and also hope. It 
is a solemn moment in the history of the Catholic 
Church, which may well sound the hour of her mor- 
tal agony, or at least put her in grave peril ; for so 
great an effort issuing in a check, so formidable a 
sword-stroke ending in the rippling of water, would 
be a discomfiture unexampled in her history. But 



12 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

one thing could be more dangerous to lier — the inso- 
lent triumph of the frantic party which would truly 
make the Pope a God to march before mankind, 
according to the wish of the idolatrous Israelites. In 
every respect, then, a visit at Eome in these excep- 
tional circumstances has its peculiar interest. I shall 
give you my conclusions with the most entire sincerity, 
in all the vivacity of their primal gush. Do not ex- 
pect in these pages the carefully carved chapters of a 
controversial treatise, or of a Traveler's Guide for 
Italy. No, yon will here find in all their medley the 
emotions experienced in the presence of marvels of 
art, in the presence of the melancholy splendors of a 
natural scenery which adorns with enchanting grace 
the mourning array of a ruined world, and the not 
less vivacious ones inspired by that modern Pharisa- 
ism which here has only the wit to whiten a magnifi- 
cent sepulcher in which it wonld shut up the religion 
of the Risen, and with it an enslaved world, under 
the same sealed and well-guarded stone. 

I left France, herself, too, in a dark hour of her 
history, agitated, feverish, starting up from the long 
despotism which she has undergone and almost de- 
served, as one starts with convulsive bounds from a 
nightmare — divided between distrust of her governors, 
whose concessions are blended with imprudent regrets 
and insane recoilings, and the dread of socialist dema- 
gogues, who hasten to transform the little freedom we 
have regained into license, and speak every evening 
of the approaching division of all possessions, or what 
they call the great social liquidation. 

Let us hope that the true liberal party will be able 
to find its w T ay between these two extreme sections, 
and save us from a bloody catastrophe which would 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 13 

lead to new Csesars. Forgive my uneasy and sad- 
dened patriotism these painful reflections, which occu- 
py my mind at the moment of leaving my country 
for a few weeks. 

From a religious stand-point, the Council is natu- 
rally the great affair in France, as every- where ; while 
people expect it to produce universal harmony, it is 
producing the most noisy divisions in the bosom of 
the Church of Unity. I shall be told that these are 
the discordant notes of musical instruments prepar- 
ing to perform their part in a symphony. I doubt 
whether they can be brought into unison, skillful as 
the leader of the orchestra may be, at least without 
breaking a few. The reason is very simple; the 
principal cause of division among the symphonists 
of the Catholic Church is precisely the authority of 
the leader of the orchestra. Some think his baton 
should be obeyed like the rod of Moses, or the scep- 
ter of Judah. Others would have it tempered and 
restrained. What, then, are the means of agreement ? 
Evidently, the Papacy can triumph only by imposing 
silence on the recalcitrant ; but to suppress discord- 
ant voices is not to melt them into harmony. Read 
the circular letters of our Bishops, the articles of our 
Catholic journals of various shades ! On the one 
hand, anathema is hurled at all who do not bow be- 
fore the personal infallibility of the Holy Father- 
that is the dogma of dogmas, for it is authority in 
its supreme, palpable manifestation. On the other 
hand, appeal is made to the history of the Church, to 
the ancient Councils, and to the Gallican Church. 
There is a discord of tumultuous and irritated voices. 
Such is the preface to the Council in France. When 
I left Paris two religious manifestations chiefly occu- 



14 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

pied public attention. The first was the striking rup- 
ture of Father Hyacinthe with Rome. It is vain to 
talk ; this is a terrible blow for Catholicism. Sar- 
casms and condemnations will not enfeeble the effect 
of this act, which reveals to all men the conscious 
inability of sincere and liberal minds to remain in 
the bonds of Romanism. This utterance of con- 
science, which is no seditious outcry, but an appeal to 
the tribunal of Jesus Christ, has had a deep reverbera- 
tion among our people. It will have a more salutary 
effect than his most eloquent discourses in that pulpit 
of Notre Dame, where that mighty voice will resound 
no more — the most eloquent voice our generation has 
heard, and which was privileged beyond any other to 
attract and thrill thousands of listeners. The mo- 
mentary silence of Father Hyacinthe is the most 
energetic of protestations against religious servitude ; 
and of this silent preaching we may say that it is 
heard in the very depths of the consciences of men. 
I shall come back to Father Hyacinthe when I shall 
have to attest the effect produced at Rome by this 
courageous deed. 

The second event of which I would speak is the 
book of the Abbe Maret, Bishop of Sura, against the 
infallibility of the Pope. This grave and solid work 
asserts the periodicity of the Councils, w T hich alone, 
in union with the Papacy, have the privileges of in- 
fallibility. Doubtless we can no more accept this 
conclusion than that of the Ultramontanes — we who 
admit no other infallibility than that which comes 
from the Holy Spirit. But for the Romish party 
the book of the Abbe Maret, which is the standard 
of Gallican, and more or less liberal Catholicism, is 
the abomination of desolation. His colleagues in the 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 15 

episcopacy, too, feel no scruple in anathematizing it 
to their hearts' content. I mention this book because 
it sums up, in some sort, the pith of the most embar- 
rassing question for the Council, and because, with 
the resolutions, so distinct under their respectful form, 
of the Bishops at Fulda, it presents the programme 
of what may be called the left wing of the great 
(Ecumenical Council. I shall strive to learn here 
what its chances are, and whether it will succeed at 
least in preventing the follies to which the Coryphsei 
of the party of Home would gladly push things. At 
any rate, there prevails, for these various reasons, a 
great anxiety concerning the Council and its issue. 
Do not these words, which express an incontestably 
true feeling, suffice for the condemnation of the entire 
Catholic system. "What ! you affirm that the Holy 
Spirit will speak through the Council ! You indeed 
say the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God — and you 
are inquiet about what he shall say — you are not very 
sure that he will conclude on what is good and desir- 
able for the Church ! You are anxious — as if you 
had to do with fallible and ignorant beings — as 
though you had to do with yourselves ! This is be- 
cause you are dealing with yourselves, and yourselves 
alone. You feel this at bottom, and that is why you 
are perfectly right in being alarmed : the sequel will 
show how well-founded are these fears. 

Such, sir, were my thoughts as I departed from my 
own country and approached this city, to which so 
many eyes now turn as toward the Zion of the Lord. 
My last pause on Protestant soil, before approaching 
the proper domain of Catholicism, was well-suited to 
make the contrast salient to me between the religion 
of the Spirit and that of the Letter. I spent Sunday, 



16 Eome Italy and the Council. 

October 30, in an Evangelical Church belonging to the 
Free Church of the Canton de Yaud, which is situ- 
ated on the heights of the Alps among the Ormonts. 
Yery modest is the humble chapel where these pious 
mountaineers, zealous and decided members of a 
Church which has known the baptism of persecution, 
were assembled. And yet, in presence of the lofty 
and snowy summits which surround it, and that were 
illuminated by the most radiant sunshine, it rears be- 
fore the eyes a still loftier summit, even of that wor- 
ship in spirit and in truth which is solemnized neither 
on the mountain of Jerusalem nor on that of Grerizim, 
but wherever Jesus Christ has true adorers. It was 
a fine and touching thing to see these sturdy shep- 
herds of the Alps journeying along prematurely 
snowy roads toward their chapel, to rest from their 
rude toil as they sang the praises of the Lord in their 
natal tongue. Their manly and weary features were 
kindled up with the pure light of inward piety. 
These were truly priests of the New Covenant, de- 
claring "in their own tongue the wonderful works 
of (rod." The Sistine Chapel, with its cardinals in 
scarlet robes and its strangely delicate harmonies, will 
offer me no spectacle comparable with that which I 
witnessed with deep joy in a remote corner of the 
mighty Alps. 

Let us rapidly cross the Simplon, despite the mag- 
nificence of the Bernese Alps, which appear from the 
rugged and narrow gorges, in all their glory, under 
the splendor of a beautiful autumnal sun. Behold 
Italy ! behold the rich and monotonous region of 
Lombardy — then the low and fertile valleys watered 
by the Po ! Every thing has indeed changed since 
my first visit to this region fifteen years ago. The 



Kome, Italy 5 and the Council. 17 

traveler notes this agreeably in the greater facility of 
public conveyances. He no longer has to suffer from 
the infinite division of Italy into petty principalities, 
each of which extended to him a hand eager for the 
price of his passage. But especially, his eye is no 
longer offended by the white coat of the Austrian 
soldier, who appeared on this soil that detested him 
like a consuming worm on a rose. It is all over with 
those petty tyrants of Parma and Modena, who had 
not even wit enough to keep their thrones, and needed 
a German saber to preserve them. I know all the 
faults with which the new Italian kingdom may be 
reproached; the medley of intrigue and violence 
which it has employed in swallowing the peninsular 
artichoke. I shall beware of calling evil good ; but it 
still remains true that the new kingdom has respond- 
ed to the deepest and most legitimate national aspira- 
tions, and that finally it has delivered the country 
from an abominable clerical oppression which, had it 
lasted, would have dried up the springs of all higher 
life. The partisans of absolutism cast stones at the 
New Italy, and laugh at her difficulties ; they are 
pitiless toward her eccentricities, toward the trouble 
she finds in giving a solid and reasonable basis to her 
public life. They forget that she contracted her de- 
fects under their tuition, and that the freedman long 
retains the marks of his chains. These considerations 
came back to my memory the other day as I roamed 
through the city of Parma, which particularly suffered 
under the most abject tyranny. She has not yet fully 
awakened ; the shadow of her past enfolds her. Her 
population still seems given up to the listlessness of 
enslaved nations ; the flagstones of her streets are 

worn by the lazy tramp of her numberless abbes and 

2 



18 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

her idle youth. Patience ! All this is changing from 
day to day — modern life with its severe exactions is 
invading the ancient ducal residence. At any rate, 
the town has incomparable artistic jewels in the 
paintings of her Correggio. There must we learn to 
know this genius who conceived a purely modern 
type of beauty, full of intelligence and passion, whose 
finest shades he was skilled to reproduce through the 
infinite gradations of his chiaro-oscuro. The Virgin, 
in his picture of St. Jerome, strikes you as a fresh 
and more penetrating intuition of eternal beauty 
than any other. I pass Florence, w^here I may pause 
with you on my return, and I transport you 
into marvelous Umbria, so long bowed under the 
yoke of Rome, but which has ardently desired and. 
paid for its enfranchisement. It was here that the 
Catholicism of the Middle Ages had its finest devel- 
opment, and that it created a truly Christian art, 
which gave expression to a high ideal that we should 
be able to admire, even though for us it has been in 
many respects transformed. It is impossible not to 
be struck with the singular relation existing between 
the aspect of these beautiful scenes and the works of 
the great masters who were born or developed here. 
Nature is not at all oppressive in its grandeur, as 
among lofty mountains, nor seductive, as on the coasts 
of the Mediterranean. It is full of sweetness, calm- 
ness, and harmony, though along its horizon appear 
the gentle peaks of the Apennines. The outlines of 
the landscape stand forth in exquisite purity and grace ; 
they seem to undulate in light curves, following the 
sinuosities of the innumerable little mountains which 
cut up the plain, and are covered with the elegant 
vegetation of the South. Fling over this lovely 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 19 

scenery a golden light which imparts to every object 
the most perfect transparency, and you will under- 
stand that Umbria is admirably fitted to inspire an 
ingenuous and profound style of art. She does not 
stifle its flights beneath a startling magnificence ; she 
gently stimulates it, and furnishes its palette with 
that pleasant coloring which suits purely ideal paint- 
ing, whose contours should be firm and fixed as those 
of the horizon. There truly ought that fair blossom 
of artistic mysticism to spring up and unfold which 
preceded the splendid works of the Renaissance. 
Let us add that the appearance of the great Umbrian 
school coincides with one of the finest religious move- 
ments of humanity, of which, in some sort, it bears the 
burning impress. Before speaking of this movement, 
which is very interesting through the contrast it offers 
with the character of contemporary Catholic piety, let 
as pause a moment at Perugia, which was the center 
and focus of the Umbrian school. It overlooks the 
w r hole country that I have just described, and is 
stamped with that inimitable seal of Old Italy which 
the railways themselves will hardly destroy. Besides, 
it largely escapes the impetuous movement of civil- 
ization ; for the trains that pass at its foot set down 
few travelers tempted to pause. Those who ascend 
its hill are true art-pilgrims, and not merely curious 
people. Yet patriotic feeling has awakened great 
agitations here. Before the hour of her deliverance. 
Perugia simply bore with indignation the dominion 
of the Holy See, which paralyzed all her national life, 
and would make her a mere museum, while beside 
her echoed mightily the cry of emancipation. On 
occasion of the war of 1859, she revolted. 

Unhappily for her, the treaty of Yillafranca came 



20 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

to cut short for a time all hopes of the enfranchise- 
ment of Southern Italy. Before this time she had 
been recaptured by the pontifical troops, who had 
given themselves up to the most frightful excesses, 
as worthy servants of the Vicar of the Prince of 
Peace. This event produced a very lively impression 
of indignation even in the bosom of French Catholi- 
cism, at least in its enlightened section. I remember 
meeting at that period, in Paris, some of the most 
eminent of her clergy. I dared not whisper a word 
before them about the sacking of Perugia. But it 
was quite needless prudence, for they loudly con- 
demned the odious act. Not only, said they, do we 
believe all the abominations imputed to the Swiss 
troops of the Holy Father, but we believe even 
worse things. In his service he has the vilest rascals 
in Europe, and the best thing that could happen to him 
would be to have his army soundly whipped, so that he 
might escape the deplorable consequences to which his 
temporal power leads. When priests hold such lan- 
guage we can imagine how disinterested laymen felt. 
It is worth while, truly, to reconquer a wretched strip 
of land by the ruin of thousands of souls ! Paris is 
well worth a mass, said Henry IV., to explain his 
abjuration. It is an unworthy saying, even in the 
mouth of such a prince as he. The Papacy of our 
day seems to say, " My temporal dominion is worth 
more to me than my spiritual dominion ; Rome is 
well worth all the masses in the world." It is, in- 
deed, certain that the more tyrannical the sacerdotal 
yoke becomes in civil things, the less do men believe 
in the mass, that is, in the spiritual pontificate. We 
shall have more than one occasion to resume these 
considerations. Let us return to the Perugia of 



Kome, Italy, akd the Council. 21 

ancient times. From the stand-point of history and 
art it is immensely interesting ; for it is there that 
we grasp the transition from the priestly and immo- 
bile Byzantine style of painting to the living and 
animated style of modern times. In place of a con- 
ventional type constantly reproduced on a golden 
ground, we have w T orks of individuality. Life begins 
to break forth from the eyes; the glance grows sud- 
denly animated, because that is the most direct organ 
of the soul, and because the focus of man's life is in 
his heart. In Cimabue we find precisely that radi- 
ance, that flame which was lacking in the Byzantine 
artists, who were rather vestry artisans. In Fra 
Angelico the human form is still somewhat swaddled, 
or buried in a conventional immobility. But its 
movements are more varied — picturesqueness crops 
out in the accessories. In Perugino, who is the king 
of ancient Perugia, we see veritable life still some- 
what enchained, but it grows more and more free, 
especially in his admirable frescos, where simply 
human subjects take their place beside the consecrated 
subjects of the evangelical story. 

The school of Perugia uttered its last word m 
Perugino, and this last word is still one of tender 
and lofty mysticism, all the more remarkable since 
the master himself seems to have been a stranger to 
it in his sentiments ; but the atmosphere he breathed 
was so saturated with it that he could not escape it. 
After all, art is a great ^Eolian harp, shivering with 
the breezes that pass over it. The breeze in the 
time of Perugino came from the hights of the soul, 
and it was mighty enough to impose itself on the 
great master. 

It is also at Perugia that we see the early works 



22 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of Raphael, when he followed with docility the inspi- 
ration of Perugino. But here we perceive a broader 
style and a serener grace. Moreover, Perugia pos- 
sesses a Virgin from his hand which is a ravishing 
masterpiece, and which may be placed toward the close 
of his first manner. We might call it the swan-song of 
the Umbrian school ; but this song is only the prelude 
of a sublimer harmony, for Raphael already stands 
in his completeness on this canvas. He leaves, as a 
farewell to the school of his tender youth, an immor- 
tal masterpiece wherein it again lives forever in a 
type which reproduces its most admirable qualities 
in an idealized form, and having thus paid his debt, 
he goes speeding to the conquest of new worlds. 

Assisi, whither the railway brings us in an hour 
from Perugia, is altogether a great artistic and religious 
sanctuary. Thence proceeded one of those mighty 
impulses which mark a new phase in the history of hu- 
manity. To comprehend it, we who have been reared 
in reformed Churches, we mnst be able to rise 
above all that is external, for we have some difficulty 
in finding true Christianity under the robe of a monk. 
And yet it is certain that Saint Francis, the founder 
of the order of Capuchins, was a great Christian. 
What strikes us in the religious movement, of which 
he was the leader, is precisely what distinguishes it 
from the forms of Catholic piety preferred in our day. 
He was no knight of the Holy Church like Dominic, 
his sole aim to crush heresy. He was quite uncon- 
cerned about the Pontifical authority to which, in 
the candor of his soul, he easilv submitted. The 
idolatry of the Virgin, too, was quite foreign to him. 
No, it is love for Jesus Christ that completely swayed 
hi in ; that was the inmost basis of his moral life, not 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 23 

a love that had merely its fervid impulses, and 
plunged itself into idle contemplation. He recog- 
nized Jesus Christ in the poor ; it was truly He who 
wandered naked and hungry in the cities and rural 
districts of his country. He received in its full seri- 
ousness the divine word, whatever you shall do for 
him is done unto me. It is to me that you break 
bread when you shall appease his hunger ; it is to me 
that you give a cup of water when you shall quench 
Irs thirst. I am he and he I. This is what moved 
the heart of Saint Francis when he was yet a brilliant 
and wealthy young man, much more wonted to pre- 
siding in gay feasts than to attending church ; that is 
what impelled him to strip himself of his cloak for a 
pauper. This first impulse of a self-despoiling charity 
paints his entire life. Observe carefully that he did 
not seek expiation in self-denial, but only to afford 
solace to that human suffering which had appeared 
to him in all its tragic reality. When we see this un- 
vailed, we must either die for sorrow or devote our- 
selves wholly to its assistance. This is the eternal 
foolishness of the cross. I know well that Saint 
Francis went beyond all bounds in making alms- 
giving the condition of true religious life, as under- 
stood by him. Self-denial is only valuable and useful 
so far as it ends in an efficacious succor of the needy. 
Putting himself in a position to receive gifts, he 
made himself useless, for he did but add to the total 
poverty that was to be relieved. This was the mis- 
take of Saint Francis — he might have given himself 
up to productive toil, and yet have practiced the 
heroism of charity. But how heroic and sublime he 
is! He triumphs over every difficulty; in his way 
he bends the rules of that ecclesiastical authority to 



24 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

his holy follies, which distrusted such vehemence, 
and feared it could not restrain the overflowing 
stream within its banks. It communicated from soul 
to soul like an irresistible contagion — it swept away 
in its impetuous current thousands of men till then 
sunken in worldly life; and this movement of a great 
soul became the starting-point of a considerable influ- 
ence which renewed the Church. Saint Francis in- 
deed displaced the center of influence ; he caused it to 
pass from the superb hierarchy of Gregory YII. and 
Innocent III. to the humble fervor of a popular 
order, which was open even to laymen in its third 
order, for one of its most remarkable characteristics 
w r as, that it was in no respect sacerdotal. Saint 
Francis had accomplished the better part of his work 
before taking orders. Though submitting to the 
harshest privations, it was not as astern fakir, who can 
only curse the world ; he felt, on the contrary, a ten- 
der sympathy for all nature ; he not only heard the 
sublime chant of the starry heavens like the Psalmist, 
but the lark and the cricket murmured in his ear a 
song of thanksgiving, and he calls the swallows his 
sisters. He gave the first impulse to a species of 
popular poesy full of freshness. The only hymn of 
his that has been preserved is a holy convocation of 
all nature to worship its author. 

"Praised be my Lord ! with all his creatures, and 
especially our brother the sun, who brings us light 
and the day ; he is fair and bright with great splendor, 
and, O Lord, he signifies thee to us. 

" Praised be my Lord for our sister, the moon, and 
for the stars which thou hast formed in the clear, 
fine sky. 

u Praised be my Lord for our mother, the earth, 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 25 

who sustains and nourishes us, and produces all kinds 
of fruit, the many-tinted flowers, and the grasses. 

" Praised be my Lord for those who forgive for thy 
love's sake, and who patiently bear tribulation and 
infirmity. Blessed are they who persevere in peace, 
for by thee, Supreme God, shall they be crowned. 
Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks to him, 
and serve him in great humility." 

Surely this is a frankly Christian tone, and fixes a 
great gulf between St. Francis and the disciple of 
Buddha, who sees in nature only a perfidious en- 
chantress, and compares earthly existence to an ac- 
cursed forest, where the five senses await us like 
brigands at the turn of the most flowery paths. It 
is unnecessary to circle the brow of the Saint of As- 
sisi with the halo of the marvelous. The famous le- 
gend of the wounds of Christ imprinted on his limbs 
has no satisfactory proof, and will not endure historico- 
critical examination. It has, nevertheless, a very fine 
and deep meaning. What is it to be a Christian but 
to be, as St. Paul says, crucified with Christ ? Can 
true charity be any thing but an immolation ? Ghari- 
tas est passio, said Origen. Charity is a renewal of 
the passion, minus its expiation. To compassionate 
is to take upon one's heart the burden of those who 
suffer — to have the same feelings that Jesus Christ 
had ; to drink a few drops from his cup. 

This legend of Saint Francis awakens another in my 
memory, which has just been very vividly recalled to 
me at a little chapel in the Appian Way, that I entered 
this afternoon. It is called the Quo Vadis Church, be- 
cause, according to tradition, it was on this precise 
spot of the Appian Way that Jesus met Peter flee- 
ing from the persecutions of Nero. Quo Vadis? 



26 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

" Whither goest thou ? " the disciple asked his Master. 
"I am going to Rome," replied Jesus, " again to be 
crucified." Peter perceived that the Master wished 
to suffer in his servant, and he turned fearlessly back 
to confront his punishment. Thus some of these an- 
cient legends contain a profound meaning that might 
well rebuke our barren orthodoxy, which has too far 
forgotten that we are only Christian by becoming 
truly members of Christ. But the Church to which 
Saint Francis belonged, needs especially to learn from 
him a living, loving piety, clear of the miserable su- 
perstitions and the frightful Mariolatry which now 
stain her. There would truly be much to rebuke in 
his exaggerations, and we would not transport them 
as they are into our Churches, but at least they 
would trench on that servile and idolatrous religi- 
osity which now knows only two divinities, the Virgin 
Mother in heaven and the Pope on earth. It seemed 
to me interesting to evoke this type of the purest 
Catholic piety of the Middle Ages face to face with 
the pitiful deviations to which she allows herself to 
be drawn away to-day. In speaking of Saint Francis 
I have not departed from Assisi, for the little city 
lives on his memory ; she preserves it as the Vestal 
guarded her sacred fire. Isolated on her mountain, 
overlooking the entire plain, without blending in the 
tumult of contemporary life, she is one of those grand 
asylums where humanity one day approached so Bear 
God that she could never more forget him. After 
these glories of holiness, it seems that nothing further 
can be attempted. The city is a vast, silent cloister. 
The true sanctuary of Saint Francis is at the summit of 
the hill. It consists of three superimposed churches. 
The crypt contains the tomb of Saint Francis. There, 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 27 

it is pretended he remained constantly on his knees 
in prayer. The uppermost church is not used 
for worship ; the intermediate church is alone devo- 
ted to that. Dark and narrow, it contains admirable 
frescos ; among the rest, those of Giotto, showing the 
espousals of St. Francis with virginity, obedience, and 
especially poverty, then his glorification. These 
frescos constitute a great page in the history of art ; 
they mark one of its most important stages. Saint 
Francis also inspired Dante, and thus he would 
vainly conceal his life ; he could not help its becom- 
ing fruitful in every direction. It is related that 
Goethe, in his Italian journey, took the trouble to 
climb the hill of Assisi ; but the superb Olympian did 
not deign to cast a glance at the sanctuary of Saint 
Francis ; he had eyes only for three Corinthian col- 
umns to be seen in the market. Yet we have seen 
that, even from the artistic stand-point, holiness is 
fruitful. But any fanaticism is narrow, and the great 
poet of Germany reserved all his worship for the 
serenities of Grecian paganism ; we have caught him 
in the very act of narrowness of mind. 

As yet I can give you no great information on 
Rome, for I have but just arrived ; but fear not lest 
I should conduct you through churches and museums. 
I shall only converse incidentally with you on mat- 
ters of art, yet I shall not pass them by in silence, 
since my letters would then lack sincerity. I desire 
to cleave especially to subjects of present interest 
— the moral state of the people, particularly of the 
clergy, and every thing relating to the Council. It is 
not the Koine that all travelers see which I would 
wish to depict to you, but more particularly the 
Rome of the year of grace 1869, which will mark so 



28 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

important a date in the history of Catholicism. For 
the moment, by what I hear, they are not so sure of 
triumph in the ultramontane camp as they were 
some months since ; a certain hesitation betrays itself 
in many members of the clergy. Germany now plays 
the part that France played in the Council of Trent. 
She is dreaded as being able to make serious opposi- 
tion, while the English prelates are considered as the 
elect of ultramontanism, who might rebuke the Ro- 
man monseigneurs. But we shall return to these char- 
acteristics of the various fractions of the episcopacy 
when their positions shall be more distinctly defined. 
Yesterday, Sunday, November 7, the Cardinal Yicar 
Apostolic caused the following invitation to be 
posted up on all the walls of Rome. I reproduce it as 
one of the most important documents of the prelim- 
inary history of the Council, which perfectly shows 
in what spirit the Roman curia would urge it on, 
and under what auspices they desire to place it. 

Invito Sacro. 

u In a few days Rome will receive within her walls 
pastors coming from all the countries of the world, 
and the solemn day consecrated to the Immaculate 
Conception of Mary draws near — a day which will be 
more memorable in the future, since it will witness 
the opening of the Council. Therefore, all true sons 
of the Mother of God address themselves with the 
greatest affection to her whom St. Cyril called norma 
rectce fidei, the norm or rule of the true faith, and 
they address themselves to her, in order that just as 
she was personally at Jerusalem the teacher of the 
Apostles and their companions in prayer, to call down 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 29 

the sanctifying Spirit from heaven upon the Council, 
so she may preside to-day over the new assembly 
gathered under her maternal protection, and that by 
her mediation she may obtain all the favors of which 
God has made her the arbiter and dispenser. Hasten 
ail to the Triduo of the Church of the reverend 
Capuchin Fathers. 

" We also exhort you to attend in the same church 
the Triduo of Jesus of Nazareth. We feel assured, 
O .Romans, that yon will second our paternal desire, 
and that, prostrate before the venerated image of 
Immaculate Mary, you will invoke her as your hope, 
and as the hope of the Catholic Church, and Mary 
will once more prove to the enemies of the truth how 
justly the sacred liturgy speaks thus of her : Cunctas 
hcvreses sola interemisti in universo mundo? 

This official document appears to me of the highest 
interest, as an ingenuous revelation of ultramontane 
Neo-Catholicism. It especially brings into clear light 
the intention of the Pope in choosing the 8th of De- 
cember for the opening of the Council. The 8th of 
December is, in fact, the day on which he alone pro- 
mulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception 
of Mary, contrary to all the ancient rules of the 
Church. Is not this saying, in the clearest, most pre- 
cise manner, that the Council is only an accessory 
wheel, since it is possible to dispense with it in the 
proclamation of an article of the creed, the most con- 
siderable innovation that can be imagined ? 

Convoking the Council on the anniversary of this 
most fearful usurpation which, three centuries ago, 
would have stirred up the whole Catholic world, 
the Pope does what Napoleon III. would do, 



30 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

should he convoke the renewed parliament on the 
2d of December, the festival of his coup (Vetat. 
The Pope has thus found the most ingenious means 
of consecrating his personal power with splendor, and 
teaching the world that there is no means of limiting 
it. After this, what matters it whether the Council 
decrees his personal infallibility or not, since it is cer- 
tain that in no case will it be set aside by a formal 
canon ? His infallibility would be truly rejected only 
in case the Council protested against the proclamation 
of the Immaculate Conception by the Pope; but the 
boldest of the opposition would not dare hope for 
any such thing. The infallibility of the Holy Father 
has been affirmed in fact ; he has proved it as the 
Greek philosopher demonstrated motion by walking, 
and he has walked over the most indisputable tradi- 
tions of the Church to attain his ends. Consequently* 
the debates of the high assembly can only possess a 
theoretic interest ; the practice is regulated, and very 
conclusively regulated. 

What is very striking, further, in the Invito Sacro, 
is the audacity with which the Cardinal Vicar, speak- 
ing in name of the Holy See, draws the consequences 
of the Immaculate Conception, in reality a true 
apotheosis of Mary. She, she alone is invoked at the 
moment when the Church is to prepare for these 
solemn sessions. Of the Holy Spirit, w T ho, however, 
is canonically the inspiration of the Council, not a 
word ! As to Jesus Christ, you have remarked the little 
notice inserted in a parenthesis that he might not be 
entirely neglected, but he is treated as a personage 
of secondary importance. The Cardinal Yicar, after 
his effusions over the Immaculate Virgin, seems to 
check himself, and say, " Iforgot to mention to you 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 31 

a certain Jesus of Nazareth, whom you would do 
well to invoke, but in his turn, after our chief di- 
vinity. Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" This 
benevolent attention, transitorily bestowed on the 
Saviour of the world, is one of those luminous touches 
which clearly define the whole situation. Mary is 
set up not only as the merciful Mother, who procures 
the forgiveness of sin by her intercession, but as the 
morning star which sheds on the Church the pure 
light of heaven. The Invito Sacro boldly proclaims 
her the norm of truth. I think I never read such a 
thing before ; at any rate, never was any other 
Council inaugurated in this fashion. The Cardinal 
Yicar has private information on the part Mary 
played in the Council of Jerusalem ; he forgets, un- 
happily, to make this known to us, for, according to 
the Acts of the Apostles, she shone there by her 
silence ; and it is this very silence, humility, the vail 
in which she constantly wrapped herself, which is 
her true greatness. Finally, to crown this master- 
piece, the Cardinal Yicar ascribes to her the honor of 
banishing all heresy from the world. It is often 
said that we must seek the true idea of a letter in the 
postscript. Do the latter words, then, signify that 
the entire preceding tit-bit is an exquisitely delicate 
irony ? For, finally, we need but open our eyes to 
see that Mary has very badly succeeded in suppressing 
the heresies of the world. It seems, on the contrary, 
as though the world more and more, belonged to 
them. Witness the immense expansion of the Anglo- 
Saxon race, and the triumphs of Protestant Germany. 
Catholicism can no longer say, like Philip II., that 
the sun never sets on her empire ; for all the Occident 
is escaping her power. Let us confess that Mary is 



32 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

just as much the norm of truth as she is the subduer 
of heresies, and we shall agree with the Invito Sacro. 
It is here that we must find the preface to the Council. 
You see that it commences well. 

This morning the ceremonies of the Triduo began in 
the beautiful Ara-Coeli Church, whither the Fran- 
ciscans daily ascend in throngs, sweeping the dust of 
the Capitol with their robes — a striking contrast which 
inspired in Gibbon the first idea of his work on the 
decline of Eome. E. de Pkessense. 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 33 



LETTER II. 

A Glimpse at Rome : Like City like Citizens — A Chapter of Contrasts : 
1. The City and the Surrounding Desert; 2. The Ancient Church of 
St. Clement and the Modern Churches; 3. The Contrast of Quarters 
in Rome; 4. The Contrast in Costumes : 5. Pagan and Christian Art; 
6. The Capuchins and the Scipios; 7. Spiritual and Formal Relig- 
ion ; 8. Rome and the Coming Change. 

Rome, November 9, 1869. 

Dear Sir: — And yet I must give yon a rapid 
glimpse at the city which is to be the theater of this 
great religious event, not surely a description such 
as you may find in books of travel, but a summary 
of the impressions which the Eternal City makes 
upon me. After all, there is nothing new under the 
sun, and if we merely sought novelty, it would be 
well to keep silent. Yet the sun is always new T ; it 
awakens as much joy when it appears on the horizon 
after so many centuries, as when the first daybreak 
dissipated night. And then emotion is an incessant 
spring of novelty ; it rejuvenates whatever seems 
most wasted. What is it but the peculiar tint which 
light, ever identical with itself, takes on in travers- 
ing a new medium, and coloring itself with truly 
fresh hues? Is not this the charm which we find in 
the landscapes of the masters? What they repro- 
duce is commonly well known to us ; we have enjoyed 
the shade of those trees in the neighboring forest; 
we have often gazed on those mountains or the foam 
of those waves. But what strikes and ravishes us in 
their pictures is their own way of looking at these 

things, their individuality manifested in their propor- 

3 



34 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

tioning of light and shade ; we see in the illumination 
of the picture what chiefly touched them ; it is man 
that we seek in nature ; and man, a changeful and in- 
dividual being, always escapes monotony. Thus it is 
with those great landscapes which are successively de- 
picted in our minds, and are kindled up in our imagina- 
tion with the most brilliant colors. They may have 
been a thousand times described ; it suffices that they 
inspire in us a sincere emotion which is truly our 
own ; we need no longer fear wearisome repetitions. 
This is why I have the audacity to devote a few 
pages to that ancient Rome reproduced by so many 
painters, and sung by so many poets. 

Besides, I have an excellent reason, for speaking of 
the city; never shall we understand the duration of 
its worm-eaten institutions, unless we give heed to 
the proper and unique character of this strange city, 
where every thing combines to plunge the soul into 
an indefinable languor, in which time has an in- 
expressibly senile gait that keeps us from noting its 
flight. It marches w x ith measured steps along that 
Road of the Tombs which has seen so much grandeur 
disappear. The present and the past are confounded. 
We might call it immobile duration. We should, 
doubtless, guard against those abject theories which 
are in favor in the materialistic philosophy of history, 
according to which man is absolutely like a vegetable 
in depending on the soil that bears him and the air 
he breathes. The history of this great and illustrious 
city itself suffices to give the lie to that system which 
forgets but one thing in the life of humanity, liberty, 
that is the soul and inward spring of that life. Has 
not Rome been, as her very name indicates, the image 
of power carried to its highest pitch, of the most in- 



Rome, Italy, a.kd the Council. 35 

domitable vigor, of an energy without truce or rest, that 
conquered and then devoured the world? Yet the 
heavens are the same, and the sun. Let us admit, how- 
ever, that the climate has been modified in consequence 
of the abandonment of the Campagna, which has be- 
come a vast and marshy desert ; but this very change 
is due completely to moral causes. Man changed first ; 
having suffered himself to be cast down beneath the 
task of a vast demolition, he then fell asleep under the 
shadow of a religion of servitude. He no more had 
the strength to hold the plowshare than to wield the 
sword of his fathers. Briars have taken the place of 
sheaves in once fertile fields, and the outward condi- 
ditions of existence have changed, but not till after 
the moral conditions were transformed. Still it re- 
mains true that the Roman of to-day lives in a heavy 
atmosphere, made up of malaria and incense ; and 
we do not entirely comprehend the condition of this 
people till we are acquainted with its circumstances. 
It is this that authorizes me to dwell on them a little, 
before devoting myself to the religious and social 
drama now progressing here, and which is drawing 
near one of its decisive crises. 

Should I try to explain to myself the special char- 
acter of the impressions that Eome inspires in me, 
from the wholly outside stand-point I now assume, 
I should sum them up in one word — contrast. It is 
this that seizes on the mind and the imagination, that 
prevents emotion from falling off; it is incessantly 
solicited and excited by a perpetual contrast which 
combines the most discordant things every moment 
under our eyes, yet without opposing them in an 
offensive manner. Nay, this singular city has a 
softening power which nothing resists; it is like 



36 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

those persons of honied amiability whose mere pres- 
ence hinders divergent opinions from coming to open 
rupture, and who tone down all voices. This soften- 
ing power comes largely from the grand poesy of the 
place. The esthetic stand-point gets insensibly substi- 
tuted forthemoral stand-point, which alone dictatesab- 
solute judgments. Thus the sharp points are blunted ; 
what would elsewhere excite indignation or pity 
glides easily over the charmed mind, and the most 
diverse objects melt and blend in that broad and 
purple light which is the glory and the ornament of this 
country. Beginning with the most external of these 
contrasts, let us rapidly pass over the whole series in 
order to justify my conclusion. 

The first, which most easily impresses one, is 
that of an immense and magnificent city, with the 
desert that circles it. You pass without any transi- 
tion from the brilliant and tumultuous Corso, with its 
palaces — each of w^hich is an exquisite work of art — 
its profusely gilded churches and its rich stores, to 
the severe sadness of the Forum, which, without more 
ado, conducts you into the dull and barren plain. 
Thus civilization and desolation, the present and the 
past, touch. This limitless plain produces the effect 
of a sea whose destroying wave is ever advancing, 
and which yet leaves afloat a few great fragments of 
the ships it has swallowed up. But it is a voiceless 
and unmurmuring sea, which silently destroys all that 
it embraces ; it is the Dead Sea of the Occident. But 
let us not slander it ; the sadness of the Hainan 
plain has an unequaled beauty. For myself, w T ho 
have visited the Orient — who have admired the muti- 
lated but immortal marbles of the Parthenon — I set 
nothing above a promenade along the Appian Way 



Rome, Italy, akd the Council. 37 

at sunset. The Road of the Tombs still retains but 
two or three of its monuments, but what matters that ! 
You trample the dust of the most glorious past, and 
the grand sepulcher is there beneath your eyes ! This 
is the plain itself. It spreads out, covered with a 
luxuriant yet sterile vegetation, which is its green 
shroud ; the ruined arches of the aqueducts of Clau- 
dius alone break the monotonous desolation ; while 
along the horizon the Albanian hills mingle a little 
grace with the oppressive sadness. Behind you Rome 
rears its spires and domes. You looked for a Pal- 
myra or Baalbec, and it is one of the capitals of the 
world that presses upon you. The same spectacle, 
perhaps even more striking, presents itself to us at 
Saint John de Lateran. At the foot of the splendid 
basilica which lifts its front, crowned with colossal 
statues of popes and saints against a flaming sky, the 
plain begins ; you find fragments of the aqueducts of 
Nero and of the ancient walls ; the blue mountains 
of Latium alone give repose to the eye. All the 
poets who have visited these places have celebrated 
the supreme beauty of this contrast. This inspired 
in Byron some of the sublimest strophes of his Childe 
Harold, those where he represents Rome as the Niobe 
of nations, seeing in the wrinkles and folds of the 
plain her widow's vail. Chateaubriand has also 
magnificently described this unequaled desolation. 
Well then, vainly do you have in mind these pearls 
of modern poetry ; the beauty of the spectacle is so 
great that you seem the first to discover it. This 
feeling is oppressive in its intensity if one does not 
react against it. Taking possession of an entire 
nation, which undergoes it without reasoning, it in- 
sensibly unnerves its men ; and they say in presence 



38 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of all that lies buried at their feet, that it is hardly 
worth while to begin life afresh. : and unless thev un- 
dergo new influences they easily yield, in this region 
of decline, to a government of old men. 

The Forum remains the most imposing wreck of 
ancient Rome. Every thing has been said, and said 
again, on that incomparable street which, starting from 
the Capitol, extends to the Lateran, passing under 
triumphal arches that no longer triumph over any 
thing, and which rise from amid the broken ruins ot 
edifices where the majesty of the Roman people was 
enthroned between those columns that lift their ele- 
gant capitals amid decay. A few circular stones 
alone remind us of the tribune where the voice of 
Cicero resounded. Vegetation, with its green mantle, 
covers the remnants of the imperial basilicas, as if to 
attest the immortal youth of nature before the piled- 
up ruins of human grandeur. The remains of those 
pagan temples which fronted on the Forum have 
been incased in Christian basilicas, which confined 
themselves to surmounting with a cross edifices 
reared for pagan divinities — another double-edged 
irony, for if it displays the defeat of the proud relig- 
ion of the Cesars so contemptuous toward those ob- 
scure Nazarenes who seemed in its eyes all that was 
lowest in Judaism. It also suggests at what small 
expense the degenerate Christianity of the Byzantine 
emperors effected the renewal of the pagan world. 
It was an entirely outward renewal, which fixes a 
sign, and nothing more, on the past, and leaves it 
at bottom identically the same, just like that great 
neophyte called Constantine, who extends over the 
Church a protecting hand stained with the blood ot* 
his son and his wife. 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 39 

Along the road that leads from the Forum to the 
Lateran we follow the entire drama of Christian per- 
secution. Here is the basilica where the disciple of 
Christ was tried, and where he contented himself 
with the sublime response that sent him to death, 
Christianus sum.; Two steps away is found the fa- 
mous Mamertine prison, hollowed out in the bow- 
els of the earth, a somber den, into which the con- 
fessor was plunged before being flung to the lions. It 
is probable that St. Paul spent his last days there, 
after the bonds of his captivity were tightened. 
Nothing can be more mournful and gloomy than 
this subterranean dungeon. We can imagine the 
confessor laid on the cold stones, plunged in a gloom 
somber as that of the sepulcher, and yet full of joy, 
because he saw appearing in the darkness which en- 
velopes him the bleeding head of the Crucified, as 
some martyrs report in the Acts wherein their sor- 
rows and their joys have been deposited. They are 
ready, according to the touching and sublime expres- 
sion of the young virgin of Lyons, to follow the Lamb 
wheresoever he may lead them. He most commonly 
led them to the Circus. 

Behold in its savage grandeur and gigantic pro- 
portions that famous Colosseum, still standing, though 
it has served as a quarry for the buildings of a part 
of the city. Nothing can give a better idea of ma- 
terial power in its inexorability. There the people 
thronged, drunk with blood, but never sated with it, 
even when the arena had been repeatedly reddened, 
and lifting up a more furious clamor than that of the 
ferocious beasts which howled behind their iron grat- 
ings. How many thousands of humble believers, 
both men and women, perished on this spot with the 



4:0 Bome, Italy, and the Council. 

name of Christ on their lips ! Feeble and humble, 
they nevertheless conquered amid their opprobrium, 
and this immense Circus is nothing but the attesta- 
tion of their pacific triumph. 

Allow me to use the freedom given by the episto- 
lary style, which has a right to multiply episodes, to 
lead you a few steps from the Colosseum to the 
Church of St. Clement. This is another contrast. I 
visited it this afternoon with profound interest. It 
presents us a faithful image of the basilica of the 
early times of the peace of the Church ; even though 
it should have been repeatedly rebuilt, the plan is 
still unmodified. It perhaps furnishes us some in- 
formation on places of worship toward the close of 
the third century, for it is quite probable that they 
had an analogous form. The church was so arranged 
as to harmonize with the ancient discipline, of which 
not a vestige remains in Catholicism. It was char- 
acterized by the eminently Christian idea that the 
people of God should not be confounded with the 
nation, which did not by right of birth belong to it 
but by right of conversion ; that, consequently, a sep- 
aration should exist between those without and those 
within its pale. We find this idea expressed with 
great energy in ancient liturgic fragments, particu- 
larly in those of the Church of Alexandria in the 
time of Clement and Origen. That primitive liturgy 
was summed up in these strong words, "Holy things 
to the holy." Every thing was arranged so that the 
spectator should understand that to participate in 
the life of the Church a new heart, a new life, was 
required. Hence the serious arrangements which 
were made for the instruction of the catechumen^ 
which demanded that he should break with all the 



Some, Italy, ajstd the Council. 41 

habits of heathen life. Hence the division of relig- 
ious services into two distinct and well-marked por- 
tions, the first for all who desired to hear the divine 
word, the second for those only who were entitled to 
receive the eucharistic sacrament. Read the Alex- 
andrian Liturgy and the Apostolic Constitutions in 
Coptic, discovered some years ago, which go back 
quite positively to the second century, and you will 
obtain an idea of the rigor with which this separa- 
tion between the converted and the unconverted was 
established. 

That most fatal revolution wrought by the union 
of the Church and the Empire was precisely the con- 
fusion of the populace of the city with the members 
of the religious society, and the bringing pell-mell 
into the indefinitely enlarged framework of the house 
of God the unconverted multitudes who brought 
with them their ignorance, their vices, and had to be 
now threatened with an iron rod for the advantage 
of the hierarchy, and now abandoned to their pas- 
sions and superstitions in consideration of a few 
gross forms by which they acquitted themselves to- 
ward Heaven. Thus a degenerate Christianity, which 
unites oppressive authority with the most dangerous 
indulgence toward the natural heart, was formed and 
grew up, very tyrannical toward the mind and 
lenient toward the life ; which substitutes the broad 
for the narrow way; and promises to lead to the 
gates of heaven by an easy path all who will bow to 
its yoke, and let themselves be blindly guided by its 
crook. We are well acquainted with such Chris- 
tianity. It is Catholicism in its full development, as 
displayed under our eyes at Kome. Well, is it not 
remarkable to find in the very capital of this abased 



42 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Christianity, an undeniable monument of the ancient 
constitution of the Church, which enables us to lay 
our finger on the remarkable institutions of the Alex- 
andrian Liturgy? The Church of St. Clement is in- 
deed the architectural translation of this invaluable 
document. The bare arrangement reveals the great 
principle of the separation between the faithful and 
the profane, which was carried out to the great advan- 
tage of both. St. Clement's has the form of a basilica 
with three naves. It is entered by a porch of simple 
style, the only one of its kind existing at Rome. 

Between this portal and the church itself extends 
a square court, bordered with columns ; in its center 
is the font which was used for baptism. The church 
is preceded by a portico, or atrium, of small dimen- 
sions, called the nacthea. Here were placed, in vari- 
ous positions, penitent backsliders and catechumens ; 
the former could not cross the threshold of the church 
before their restoration, nor the latter before profess- 
ing their faith and receiving holy baptism. There 
they listened to the preaching. They were dismissed 
at the moment when the eucharistic cup was passed 
among the faithful. It was impossible to draw in a 
more striking manner the line of demarkation be- 
tween the Church and the world, since those who 
aspired to become Christians were thus retained on 
the threshold of the temple. The interior arrange- 
ment of the Church of Saint Clement is likewise 
very interesting. The three naves end in an apsis, at 
once beautiful and simple, where was the episcopal 
seat surrounded by the seats of the presbyters. This 
shows that the times of early Christian liberty had 
passed, and that the episcopal system was in full 
vigor. The " Pastor of Hernias," written in the middle 



Bome, Italy, and the Council. 43 

of the second century, already anticipated its tri- 
umph, and indicated the cause with rare sagacity. 
■" Why," we read in one of the more or less apocalypti- 
cal visions of which this singular book is composed, 
'' Why does the Church wish to sit in the cathedra, the 
episcopal throne ? " The reply is, " Because he who is 
fatigued loves to sit down." Thus the cathedra, the 
sign of episcopal authority, is represented as a proof 
of the moral lassitude of the Church-— a profound 
thought, which recalls the saying of the Apostle, 
"Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
made you free." These words of the " Pastor of Her- 
nias" recur to my memory whenever I have before 
my eyes an ancient cathedra. It is true that the 
episcopal power was strangely restrained when it had 
before it, not an ignorant flock, but a trulv Christian 
people interested in public matters, and sharing in 
them, especially by election and moral participation. 
In the center of the church is an inclosure, surrounded 
by a balustrade, which served as the pulpit. Eight 
and left are two marble desks, called ambons, for the 
reading of the Holy Scriptures. The ambon of the 
gospels is higher than that of the epistles, as if to 
mark the incomparable character of the Master's 
word. Tradition assigns no pulpits to the hierarchy. 
The word of God alone bears sovereign authority. 
On this point, too, the ancient architecture yields 
valuable information. 

I had visited the Church of Saint Clement fifteen 
years ago, but judge of my delight when I discovered, 
in my visit yesterday, that excavations, skillfully con- 
ducted for the last ten years, have entirely cleared up 
the subterranean basilica, which belongs to a much 
earlier period, and whose oldest constructions may be 



44 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

referred to the fifth century. Perhaps we there have 
the very basilica which Saint Jerome mentioned in 
the year 392. The subterranean church is a precise 
reproduction of the superior church, which confirms 
the ancient type of the latter. It is also divided into 
three naves with the apsis. The most interesting thing 
that I found are the ancient mural paintings, which 
take us back quite near the age of the catacombs, 
though we discern in them incontestable traces of 
the rising Catholicism. They represent scenes taken 
from the life of Saint Clement, and, among others, a 
solemn celebration of public worship, with all the 
officiating functionaries, which presents a faithful idea 
of the hierarchy. The date of this fresco must be quite 
posterior to that of the church itself; it is of the eighth 
or ninth century. One of these frescos deeply moved 
me ; to my thinking, it is one of the pearls of Chris- 
tian painting — and I name it because I have nowhere 
seen it mentioned. It contains but two figures, 
Jesus Christ and Adam. The Redeemer bears a 
celestial expression of profound, sympathizing, and 
victorious love. He comes to the abode of the dead, 
seeking the representative of the fallen race, who has 
so long awaited him, and who now sees his protracted 
desire satisfied, and the promise of Eden magnifi- 
cently fulfilled. His glance betrays a serious, aston- 
ished joy. This meeting of the first and the second 
Adam brings before our eyes the entire drama of 
redemption in the most moving manner. Christian 
antiquity delighted in this thought. The apocryphal 
" Gospel of Nicodemus," which was cited by Justin 
Martyr, and consequently goes back to the first half 
of the second century, is partly devoted to the visit 
of Christ to Sheol, a vague region reserved according 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 45 

to the ideas of the time to the men of the old covenant, 
until the expected Messiah should open to them the 
gates of light. Every prophet hails, in his way, the 
Desire of nations. The first Adam blesses him with 
emotion as the repairer of his own revolt. Here is 
truly our fresco. Tn an apocryphal apocalypse enti- 
tled the " Vision of Moses," which Tischendorf has 
quite recently recovered, the death of Adam is de- 
picted in the loftiest poetry. The earth refuses to 
receive the body of her lord, of him who should not 
die. Angels lay it down not far from paradise until 
the Divine Redeemer shall come to reopen its gates 
to him. These curious monuments of Christian 
antiquity explain very well the fresco of Saint Clem- 
ents; the latter made me breathe the purest perfume 
of popular poetry in the early ages of the Church. 

You will excuse this episode, which moreover falls 
completely within the scope of this letter. I will 
come back to my Roman contrasts. A very ingen- 
ious Genevan author has justly remarked that in 
Rome itself you find both the city and the vil- 
lage. This at once strikes foreigners. The suburbs 
-are in the very heart of the city ; a few paces from a 
palace built by a Bramante you have a narrow, dirty 
medio ) with its cracked houses fluttering with rags in 
the windows. The ox-cart passes by the red carriage 
of a cardinal, or the gala-coach of a Roman prince. 
Close to the brilliant coffee-houses of the Corso you 
have the open air slaughter-house, where you come 
upon a bloody display of tattered meats which no 
longer have a name in the language of man. Meats 
are fried, and exhibited also in open shops, adorned 
with leafy boughs. In the morning great flocks of 
white goats invade the city to furnish milk, and give 



46 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

to certain quarters the air of a sheep-farm of a new sort, 
that has palaces for folds ; while the Piazza d'Espagna 
and the Piazza del Popolo present the most aristocratic 
appearance, other piazzas, far finer in the monuments 
that decorate them, like the Piazza di Navone, trans- 
port us to rustic scenes. It is a perfect village fair 
with its uncovered shops, its vegetables, and its 
fruits heaped up in pyramids, and also its trestles. 
The Transteverine quarter contains in its squalor 
magnificent Roman medallions; the women, in their 
more than simple costume, have preserved the Roman 
type of the Republic, the majestic and haughty 
cut of the features with their burning eyes. The 
ancient blood is un mingled ; it has preserved its 
vigor, as may easily be perceived by the formidable 
uproar that arises on the least squabble. The Jewish 
quarter, the ancient ghetto, is hardly more changed, 
even though the barriers which formerly closed it at 
evening no longer exist. It is still dirty and hide- 
ous, devoted to the sale of old clothes, and the 
gratuitous exhibition of vermin. And yet it was 
indisputably there that Christianity won its earliest 
adepts in the capital of the empire ; for the passage 
of Suetonius, on the agitation raised in the time of 
Claudius, by a certain Chrestus — impulsore Chresto 
— evidently indicates that some Jew from Palestine 
had brought a new leaven into the synagogues of 
Rome, and that this leaven had quite powerfully stir- 
red up the lower strata of the ghetto of that time, so that 
the Emperor believed it his duty to meddle with it. 
It was in some of these dirty streets that for the first 
time the divine words were exchanged that were sub- 
sequently to resound over the ruins of the Western 
Babylon, and doubtless more than one reader of the 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 47 

Apocalypse in the first century, from the depth of 
the opprobrium to which he was banished, hurled at 
her the prophetic defiance of Saint John. She is 
fallen, the great harlot who made the nations drunk 
with the wine of her cup, and stained her robe in 
the blood of the saints ! Alas ! she was to fall only 
to rise up in part as cruel as her pagan predecessor 
toward the representatives of the pure Gospel. 

The contrast in persons at Rome is even more 
strange than that in the various quarters. In the great 
cities of the old and the new world a uniform civiliza- 
tion passes its roller over all men ; all diversity is 
blended into one gray tint. On the contrary, a street 
in Rome is a true diorama, which presents humanity to 
us under the most diverse aspects. Pass by the for- 
eign colony, which, despite differences in nationality, 
is molded to the uniform type of high European 
society : pass by the Roman middle-classes also, who 
wear the black coat and surtout like everybody else : 
it is higher and lower that we must seek piquant 
variety and picturesque originality. To every lord 
his own honor — and here the lord is the clergy ; at 
every step you encounter a monsigneur in violet, an 
abbe with his cocked-hat, his delicate air, and intel- 
lectual glance. Rarely do you cross the street with- 
out meeting a Jesuit ; he feels at home and king at 
Rome — for his order steers the ship. Capuchins, 
Dominicans, monks of every garb, and mendicant 
friars, throng around the churches, or beg from house 
to house. The carriage of a cardinal, with its three 
lacqueys in cocked hats, traverses on the gallop the 
motley crowd, where you notice, particularly on 
Sunday, frequent groups of peasants, with sun- 
burnt-faces, and that picturesque costume which 



48 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

painters are never tired of copying. They come to 
the city for their business and devotions. They 
throng venerated sanctuaries, come to kiss the worn 
foot of Saint Peter at the Vatican, and surround, with 
open mouths, the improvisor or itinerant singer who 
exhibits a complete little domestic drama, pointing 
out with his baton the gross images which illustrate 
it. The great source of poetry at Rome is always 
the antithesis of ancient art and Christian art. Both 
appear in their noblest ideal, and, better than their 
juxtaposition, nothing could enable you to measure 
the depth of the abyss which separates them. Be- 
tween these Greek marbles with their unchangeable 
serenity and those ecstatic and fervent madonnas there 
is the entire drama of Calvary. 

Never has classic antiquity appeared so grand to 
me as in these days, with that unequaled harmony 
of form and expression which is the daughter of 
Greece, and the exquisite fruit of her finest spring- 
time, which was also the spring-time of humanity. 
There was, indeed, but a short season in history for 
the production of these masterpieces of serene and 
happy grace. It was when the human mind, freed 
from the terrible yoke of the divinities of nature 
which had, as it were, crushed it, rose up haughty 
and free to find itself diviner than all which it had 
until then adored. Humanity was its own divinity; 
and as it unfolded under a most azure sky, in a splen- 
dor of beauty and power that it has not since been 
able to regain, with a moral notion of life higher 
than all it had until then, possessed it for a moment 
imagined that it had no other peaks to climb than 
the gilded summits of its own Olympus, where it 
worshiped itself. Then it reposed under plane-trees 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 49 

arid olives, and thought it had regained paradise in 
the creations of artistic genius. This fleeting mo- 
ment of enchanted but not effeminate repose, which 
results from the equilibrium of its faculties, is it not 
fixed in the Apollo Belvidere ? This youthful god, 
conqueror of the serpent Python, in his joyous and 
haughty attitude, and with his divine smile, is he 
not humanity itself victorious over the somber relig- 
ions of the Orient, and finding nothing fairer or 
greater than itself to contemplate ? To my mind, 
this is the idea which breathes in all the Greek stat- 
ues of which Apollo is king at the Vatican, in those 
goddesses, alike smiling and proud, chaste as perfect 
beauty, but whose eyes are as limpid as the sky of 
their country, though never moistened by a tear. At 
the Chiaramonti Museum there is a young faun 
which expresses with greater frankness than any 
other marble what Winkelmann called the artaraxie, 
the superb calmness of Greek art. It is an exquisite 
work. The marble makes the supple and undulating 
forms of early" youth palpitate ; the expression be- 
trays nothing but the joy of existence. It is a dila- 
tion of unreflecting existence, the intoxication of a 
flower opening its corolla to the dew of dawn, or of 
the lark trilling its earliest morning song. Some 
months since a young god, found at Ostia, was de- 
posited at the Lateran Museum. He too brings from 
the ruins, where he has slept so many centuries, the 
triumphant smile of Greece, but with an inexpressi- 
bly disdainful smile, which produces the strangest 
effect. But let us not be unjust. Greece is some- 
thing more than a fine youth admiring himself. She 
soon perceived beyond Olympus a vaster and severer 
horizon ; and a holier divinity than her heroes sculp- 



50 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

tured by Phidias. iEschylus, Socrates, and Plato, 
each in his own way, pursued this high ideal. This 
also lives again in the museums of Rome in numerous 
and perfect works. The finest of them, as I think, 
is the Sophocles of the Museum of St. John de Lateran. 
Behold, indeed, the noble poet who celebrated the eter- 
nal law of goodness in worthy language, and consecra- 
ted it in characters whose purity should make contem- 
porary art blush. In his person you see that second 
Greece, no longer simply ingenuous and self-delighted, 
but pensive, collected, seeking with Plato the Eternal 
One in the multiplicity of things, and attracted with 
Aristotle by the changeless beauty of the Prime 
Mover of the universe, who is to him as a sacred 
lover, yet ever faithful to the worship of art, and 
never laying aside its golden lyre. That heroic, 
eloquent, and philosophic Greece, here it is again in 
this admirable statue of Demosthenes, who seems to 
repress within himself the rumbling yet ever-harmo- 
nious billows of his mighty oratory. This second 
ideal of grandeur, nobility, and force could not be 
fixed in a more durable way than the first, because 
it was not the divine reparation that the world needed. 
In its own manner it opened the way for it by awak- 
ening the desire for this reparation, and not satisfy- 
ing that desire. This rendered it more intense and 
more sorrowful, and transformed it into prayer to 
the unknown God. 

A new art, savoring more or less of decline, ex- 
presses this last phase of Hellenism in a religious 
point of view, for I am not speaking of that low and 
frivolous art which only sought to satisfy the senses. 
This new art sprang up under the shadow of those 
famous mysteries wherewith men sought to fill the 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 51 

emptiness of the official religions. In its own man- 
ner it very well expresses thirst for renovation through 
sorrow and death. This stands out clearly from the 
representation, so frequent at Eome and elsewhere, 
of the mysteries of Mithra. The warrior plunging 
the sacred knife into the side of the bull, an image 
of the natural life, is man awakened from the dreams 
of infancy and youth which led him to believe in the 
eternity of happiness on the earth ; man compre- 
hending that all terrestrial life must wither and per- 
ish, and demanding of death the secret of rejuvena- 
tion. You see that a museum is enough to unroll 
before our eyes the whole religious history of the an- 
cient world. 

Yet let us admit that Greece is no longer abso- 
lutely herself when she reaches this period of lassi- 
tude and melancholy; she has already undergone 
the influence of the Orient. The mysteries of Mi- 
thra are a new molding of Persian mythology. 
After all, when we think of Greece, that simple 
name awakens in us a vision of youth, beauty, and 
harmony — the vision of the Apollo Belvidere, or of 
the Yenus of Milo. Hence the striking contrast be- 
tween these enchanting works and that Christian 
painting which at Eome unfolds all its phases. It 
also had its infancy, like Greece ; but what a differ- 
ence in their inspiration ! I never weary of con- 
templating the ingenuous works of painting in the 
Middle Ages. They are often stiff enough in their 
golden setting, but what an impulse toward the great 
beyond ! What burning fervor ! What frank as- 
tonishment, full of adoration, before the divine Child 
of the manger ! What sublime sorrow in the Mater 
Dolorosa at the foot of the cross ! Eome is very rich 



52 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

in works of this period, which go back to Byzantine 
art, Let art cast off her heavy swaddling bands, or 
the sacerdotal robes,which imprison her in its folds ; let 
Fra Angelico come, then Francia, then Fra Bartolo- 
meo, yon will then recognize what treasures of beauty 
the Christian inspiration contained. A complete new 
world is won ; the world of the inward and the world 
from on hiVh, and it is rendered with inexhaustible 
wealth. It is not merely the divine that stands out 
on these canvasses, but also the true, profoundly hu- 
man, the inward man, who, as St. Paul says, is also 
the spiritual man. This is what the ancient chisel 
or pencil never gave us ; that is what Christianity 
revealed to us. The painting inspired by it has re- 
produced this, the variety of her colors has allowed her 
to translate this inward feeling in its infinite shades. 
When I behold the most ancient and sincere of these 
masters of Christian painting I seem to be perusing 
again the most moving pages of the " Imitation of 
Jesus Christ." Of the demigods of the Renaissance, 
Raphael, Michael Angelo, and their rivals, I shall say 
almost nothing, because no words are equal to the 
impression received before their miracles. They are 
to Christian art what Phidias and Sophocles were to 
Athens — the eternally radiant summit that attracts 
every eye. 

Permit me only to remark what a large share they 
give to thought. From this they are never distracted 
by form, marvelous as it may be. I know no more 
striking example of what I assert than the Dispute 
on the Holy Sacrament by Raphael. He has suc- 
ceeded in rendering with remarkable plasticity the 
difference set forth by St. Paul between faith and 
direct vision. Below, on the earth, are the theo- 



Bome, Italy, and the Council. 53 

logians who still seek, though they believe and 
only see as in a glass darkly. Above in heaven are 
the glorified who behold face to face. This sublime 
idea is unfolded in perfect distinctness on the immortal 
fresco, without detracting from its artistic beauty, for 
that has never been surpassed. This sovereignty 
of thought in art cannot be too greatly admired. 
Let ns not forget that these great masters of the six- 
teenth century, while painting at the expense of 
Leo X., were nevertheless sons of the generation 
which produced the Reform. 

Next to Greece, and even better than she, does 
ancient Borne live again in modern Rome, a nation 
of statues whose number is daily enriched. Before 
these figures, with strongly-marked features, we con- 
stantly hear the fate-spoken word addressed, accord- 
ing to Yirgil, to the sons of the she-wolf, Tu regere 
imperio — to you the command, the dominion of the 
world. The Bepublic and the Empire file past in 
their most eminent representatives. I confess that, 
before these haughty Togati, especially those who lived 
before Caesar, I find the sordid monk, or the plump 
abbe, very mean. I beg pardon of the Capuchins; 
but seeing them insolently passing before the tombs 
of the Scipios, I pitied them. The shade of the heroes 
of the Bepublic was too much for them. I should 
certainly have had a very different impression before 
the humblest Christian, provided he were really a 
man directly mingling in the serious conflicts of life. 
I am no blind admirer of the Latin genius ; I know 
too well how heavily it still weighs upon our race, 
and that finally it is the very genius of tyranny ; but 
at least it was a manly tyranny. For myself, I know 
nothing so hateful as the mild despotism of modern 



54 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Jesuitism. I cannot tell what I feel in that sanctuary, 
all covered with gold and precious stones, called the 
Gesu. There it is all perfume of incense, exquisite 
gentleness — yes, but under this velvet I feel the sharp 
claw. The other day I witnessed the solemn vespers 
for the feast of the dedication of St. John de Lateran. 
All the pomp of Catholic worship was displayed ; 
several Cardinals presided over the ceremony. The 
chants were splendidly executed, though, as a 
whole, they had no religious character, nor any real 
beauty. It was that bastard art, the son of the opera 
and sacristy, which sings cavatinas to Jesus Christ. 
While the psalms resounded in roulades, in which 
equivocal trebles dominated, my heart leaped within 
me. Through these soft harmonies I thought I heard 
the cries of the innumerable victims w T ho have been 
sacrificed to the Roman Moloch ; I thought of my 
Huguenot ancestors proscribed and put to death. 
I thought of their austere worship, in which they 
offered themselves as a sacrifice, ready to leave all 
for Jesus Christ. And then I went back further 
still into the past — back to that upper chamber in 
Jerusalem where worship was celebrated for the first 
time " in spirit and in truth." 

This is the pre-eminent contrast which we do not 
escape a moment in Rome. Under the arches of 
St. Peter's and her magnificent sister basilicas, you 
remember the saying, God is a Spirit. But in pres- 
ence of the police, the Swiss and the Zouaves of the 
Holy Father, you hear the other saying, My kingdom 
is not of this world. The weapons of our warfare are 
not carnal. Before the oppressive bondage, w r hich 
enthralls an entire nation, that other word of Christ re- 
turns to our memory, " If the Sou shall make you free 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 55 

ye shall be free indeed." Hearing this once wherever 
we turn our steps, no poetry can make us forget this 
contrast, for it destroys immortal souls, and is one of 
the worst scourges of the modern world. 

But there is another and final contrast which will 
soon put an end to this whole regime of death ; it is 
that which exists between Rome and every thing sur- 
rounding her. This is the one black spot on the 
map of Europe, and this spot grows daily less and 
less. Every breeze coming from the North and the 
South brings the breath of freedom ; and even the 
steam of the railways urges on a resistless propaganda 
which no custom-house can arrest. It would re- 
quire a Chinese wall that it might endure. The day 
when the Holy Father permitted a railway to pass 
through his States, he signed his temporal forfeiture. 
Those paper ramparts called Encyclicals and Sylla- 
buses will prove useless here. I am persuaded that 
we shall not much longer see superannuated Rome as 
we see it to-day : this encouraged me to describe it 
before approaching subjects of more immediate in- 
terest. E. de Pkessense. 



56 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTEE III. 

Three Pilgrims to Rome: Luther, Lamennais, Hyacinthe — Luther's 
Arrival in Rome: his Mysticism; Moral Conflicts; his Ideal Rome; 
the Real Rome; his Emancipation and Work — Lamennais: his 
Birth ; Early Life ; Taking Orders ; his Early Opinions ; Book on 
Religious Indifference; Conversion to Democracy; Advocates the 
Separation of Church and State ; UAvenir; Intrigues of the Jesuits; 
Lamennais Appeals to the Pope; Les Affairs de Rome; Evasive 
Conduct of Rome ; Impatience of Lamennais ; the Encyclical of 
Gregory XVI. ; it condemns him; the Shock; his Lapse into Skep- 
ticism; Influence on his Disciples; Subsequent Career and Death — 
Father Hyacinthe: Birth and Education; Eloquence; Liberality; 
First Warning; Yisit to Rome; Growing Freedom; Sermons on the 
Church; Further Progress ; is sent to Rome ; the Crisis; returns to 
Paris; Speech at the Peace Congress; is Rebuked; Letter to his 
Superior; his Future — Interior Discipline of the Dominicans — 
Rome desires a Short Council — Assumption of the Yirgin — Confi- 
dence of the Pope — Anniversary of the Battle of Mentana. 

Rome, November, 1869. 

Dear Sir, — In the most advanced Catholic cir- 
cles it is often asserted that Rome is irresistible for 
sincere souls, and that she makes every bandage fall 
from the most prejudiced eyes. A number of con- 
versions wrought here in the Protestant colony, En- 
glish, or American, are cited in proof. I confess that 
I cannot understand the seduction spoken of. I have 
witnessed the grandest pomps of holy week. Except 
one or two solemn moments, it is a pitiful represen- 
tation of the most moving of dramas. Without 
yielding in the least degree to sectarian spirit, I 
think one is particularly struck at Home with the 
bad aspects of Catholicism. This is quite natural, for 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 57 

it is in its capital that it boldly develops all its prin- 
ciples without tempering or softening them, as it does 
when it faces a rival Church. A sadly pleasant 
story is told of two gentleman who had made a sol- 
emn appointment to discuss their respective religions. 
The result of the meeting was that the Protestant 
went away a Catholic, and the Catholic a Protestant. 
Each of the disputants had been strong in assault 
and weak in defense. I can conceive that this affair 
may, in certain respects, and particularly under cer- 
tain conditions, be renewed. I admit that in Prot- 
estant society, which lacks life, lire, and fidelity to 
the great history of the Reform, repudiating self-re- 
newal, one may acquire a certain disgust of Protest- 
antism, at least of the type which he has under his 
eyes; that a weak mind which cannot distinguish 
between the true and the false consequences of a 
principle should be for a moment inclined to Catholi- 
cism. I avow that I can much easier conceive how r 
at Home a Catholic might have strong temptations 
to reject his religion. 

I wish to devote this letter to the effect produced 
by .Rome on three great champions of the Catholic 
cause, who vehemently broke loose from it just after 
they had witnessed with their own eyes the spectacle 
which we are told is so edifying. It sufficed them 
to go up to their holy city to lead them to shake off 
the dust of their feet against her. These three pil- 
grims are Luther, Lamennais, and Father Hyacinthe. 
The first left the Reformation after him, the second 
raised the standard of philosophic thought, the third 
that of a Christian liberality w r hich can no longer be 
realized in the domain of Romanism. These are 
more than men ; they are redoubtable powers, which 



58 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

the Papacy now finds armed for the war against her. 
We should not at all understand the Council if we 
did not thoroughly know these three great tendencies 
which were not fairly developed until their initiators 
had trodden this so-called sacred soil. 

I shall say little of Luther, having no intention of 
sending you historic dissertations. How often, in 
crossing the Piazza del Popolo, have I not imagined 
him arriving at Rome by the gate that leads into that 
square ! He is still a young monk, full of fervor. 
He comes from those German convents where the 
pure tradition of the Middle Ages is still maintained 
in its sincerity. He is a son of that profound mysti- 
cism which produced the " Imitation of Christ," and 
kindled up the glances of the madonnas and saints of 
Christian painting. He has been fed on that hidden 
honey. He has learned in the famous book " Theolo- 
gia Germanica," which has become a sort of breviary 
of tender and introspective souls, to seek the divine 
Absolute beyond all intermediaries. This mysticism, 
which might have become dangerous by plunging 
him into an unconscious Pantheism, is happily tem- 
pered by his very serious moral sense ; he has felt all 
the bitterness of sin, sighed after divine grace, and 
saluted its dawn in a book greater than all the mas- 
terpieces of mysticism — the book of God. Hitherto 
he has lived in his cell as in a hidden world ; it has 
been for him now the theater of the holiest struggles, 
now of the sweetest raptures. It lay open toward 
heaven, and not toward earth. He, too, comes to 
Rome in his candid ignorance, sure of a terrestrial 
realization of religion. He imagines that he shall 
find his ideal radiant with glory on the pontifical 
throne, and that he shall be able to say, like Jacob 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 59 

at Bethel, This is the gate of heaven. The gate opens, 
and he is introduced at once into a world of corrup- 
tion and servility. He expected the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, and he finds the Rome of Leo X. magnificently 
adorned with the spoils of Europe, clothed, like 
Dives, in purple and fine linen, and scarcely flinging 
the crumbs which fall from her table to the poor 
shivering under her marble porches, rearing up to 
heaven the vast dome of St. Peter's, but only lifting; 
up profane songs in place of prayers. The courts of 
German princes are pure compared with the court 
of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, peopled with harlots 
and jugglers, and holding Vanity Fair without shame 
beside the pretended tombs of the Apostles. This is 
w r hat arrests the young Augustinian monk. He en- 
ters the churches, and instead of there beholding, as 
in his Fatherland, a people prostrate during the cele- 
bration of the holy mysteries, he has before him a 
thoughtless assembly, where gay speeches buzz, where 
brilliant cavaliers salute with smiles women as com- 
pletely covered with diamonds as the shrines of the 
saints. He approaches the altar. O profanation ! 
The officiating priest indulges in sacrilegious sport ; 
he changes words of canonical institution. " Panis 
es" he cries, taking up the host, " et panis manebis:" 
bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain. If he 
would begin a religious conversation people answer 
him by talking of some new work of a celebrated 
painter or sculptor. He mentions the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and they speak of Virgil and Plato. Finally, 
with a wounded and indignant spirit, he would try 
and do penance for the Church and himself. On his 
knees he ascends the holy stairway, to climb which is 
worth the greatest indulgences. But he has not 



60 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

passed over half of it when a mighty voice resounds 
in him and brings an echo of the apostolic words, 
" The just shall live by faith." It is a lightning 
flash in his gloom, but such a flash as laid St. Paul 
in the dust of the road to Damascus, that he might 
rise up an apostle of Christ. Luther too rises up. 
He perceives that there is a nearer way of access to 
his God and Saviour. A vast joy overflows his heart. 
Yesterday he was a hesitating, troubled, monk ; to- 
day he is a reformer, nay, more, he is the rising Ref- 
ormation. He goes spreading to the four winds the 
great word of enfranchisement which has vibrated in 
his soul, and thousands of poor sinners soon receive 
it as manna from heaven. The Reformation pro- 
ceeds from this broken heart, so sacredly consoled, as 
from a hidden spring — a spring first of all of penitent 
tears, and then a spring of consolation and joyful 
assurance. This great stream will never fall dry nor 
recede ; it may cast upon the Roman shore refuse 
that does not truly belong to itself; but for itself it 
will pursue its invincible course. A few hundred 
conversions to Catholicism will produce no effect 
upon it. There is life, there the main current. The 
barriers and dykes of the Council will but make it 
more impetuous and irresistible. Such was the effect 
of a pilgrimage to Rome in the sixteenth century. 

Let us come to the second pilgrim. This is truly 
a man of the nineteenth century, but at the start 
he was hailed a new Father of the Church. He is 
Lamennais. No figure of his time is more original 
and worthy of interest. To understand the crisis 
well, which was unraveled even here in his startling 
rupture with the Church which he had passionately 
served, we must consider his character, and be well 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 61 

acquainted with the early part of his life. Lamen- 
nais was born at Saint Malo, a picturesque cliff in 
Brittany, incessantly beaten by a stormy sea, and 
his eyes first opened to those foggy and boundless 
horizons which are charged with reverie for the Breton 
race. His childhood was sickly, and his tempera- 
ment always remained nervous. He grew up under 
the shadow of that Catholicism, serious even in its 
superstitions, which has always reigned in Brittany. 
It is not at all Italian and frivolous. A posthumous 
correspondence of Lamennais has furnished us the most 
unexpected information on his entering orders. He 
seems to have had no real vocation. His early let- 
ters show him the victim of that more or less sickly 
melancholy which characterized the beginning of the 
century, and which was quite natural after the ter- 
rible shocks of the French Be volution ; - it was the 
only poesy then possible, a species of ruin-flower. 
Lamennais experienced the grand listlessness, the 
vagueness, the causeless sadness which Chateaubriand 
has depicted in his early works. He had embraced 
the ideas of his family and his province, as opposite 
as could be imagined to the revolutionary movement. 
But there was nothing in these which would lead to 
a vocation to the priesthood. He was forced to this 
despite himself by his elder brother, and he felt a 
keen indignation at it, which is expressed without 
circumlocution in his early letters. But once or- 
dained, he turned with all the impetuosity of his 
nature to his career. He promptly became the most 
ardent and most redoubtable defender of Ultramon- 
tanism, w T hich he did not distinguish from the most 
violent political reaction. This w^as at the com- 
mencement of the Restoration. The Empire of Napo- 



62 Home, Italy, and the Council. 

leon had just been broken up, and the partisans of 
the ancient rule fancied that they should soon crush 
the remains of the French Revolution ; but they 
were gravely mistaken, for it was no longer a ques- 
tion about a man, but about a principle, or rather, 
the principle of modern society. They desired to 
bring back the good old days of the alliance of the 
throne and the altar, and bring to new blossom the 
institutions of Louis XIV. in the France of Lafayette 
and Mirabeau. It was an insane effort, but one 
which, served by sincere fanaticism and high influ- 
ences, awakened a formidable struggle. Lamennais 
threw himself into it with desperation, cleaving par- 
ticularly to the religious side of the question. The 
institutions of Louis XIY. were not enough for him. 
He reproached the Great Monarch with his independ- 
ent spirit toward Home. For him, as for Joseph de 
Maistre, religion was summed up in absolute sub- 
mission to the Papacy. He then anticipated all the 
follies of this hour. In substance, his convictions 
were far more social than religious. This explains 
the possibility of the complete overset which was 
some years later to be effected in him. I would not 
deny that he had personal religious impressions, that 
his heart beat warmly for Jesus Christ. A com- 
ment which he then wrote on the " Imitation ,J prevents 
any absolute judgment in this matter. But we must 
always seek the tendencies which rule in a man 
through the numerous and varied elements blended 
in his moral life. Now it is certain that, in his 
Catholic period, Lamennais chiefly saw an ecclesias- 
tical and social system in Christianity. It was the 
Church that he worshiped much more than God, and 
to him the Church was an external institution, a spe- 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 63 

cies of colossal cathedral, intended to shelter man- 
kind ; it was rather a system than a moral fact. To 
believe in the Church in this way is believing in a 
form or an idea ; it is depriving ourselves of that 
direct and living contact with truth, which alone 
gives well-founded conviction, grounded on expe- 
rience. Moreover, Lamennais made the authority of 
the Church, to him inseparable from the pontifical 
authority, rest on the universality of religious tradi- 
tion, which he sought through all ages and in all 
forms of worship. All religion is founded, as he 
thought, not on a divine manifestation grasped by 
the individual soul, but on an exterior testimony, 
which imposes itself on the mind without ever pre- 
senting its authority to conscience. The individual 
must merely bow blindly before the traditional faith 
of mankind. Thus for this great mind the truth 
never had that inward and personal character which 
constitutes living faith, that which says to all human 
traditions what the people of Samaria said to the 
woman of Sychar, " Now we believe not because of 
thy saying, for we have heard Him ourselves." Note, 
as we pass on, that Lamennais was then a faithful 
disciple of modern Catholicism. A religion based on 
authority should not permit free access to the truth ; 
it is lost on the day when men understand that they 
may come directly to the God of the Gospel. The 
first of its dogmas is its own authority. " I will be- 
lieve for thee," it says to its adherent, " believe that 
I suffice for thee " — this is the law and the prophets. 
The first work of Lamennais, entitled "Beligious In- 
difference," produced a great sensation. He pre- 
sented the singular contrast of a doctrine of the past 
served by the most modern language. Strange, in- 



64 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

deed ! this fiery disciple of the Ultramontane school 
had the style of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the most 
revolutionary of our writers, a broad and impetuous 
style like those mountain torrents which roll and clash 
stones together in their transparent waters. Limpid- 
ity and fire, these constitute the twofold character of 
the language of Lamennais. This apostle spoke like 
a tribune, with an impetuosity only equaled by the 
harmony of his phrase. He was at once placed in 
the front rank of the writers of his generation, and 
lauded to the skies by the Catholic party, which 
found in him its most eloquent apologist. Soon after 
the publication of his first book he approached cur- 
rent polemics, and in these he displayed the same 
talent, with a new and truly unheard of degree of 
passion, growing more desperate perhaps against the 
moderate Gallicans, (who would not make litter of 
the ancient independence of the Church of France,) 
than against the revolutionists. He demanded, in 
fact, the complete overthrow of the French society 
that dates from 1789, not hesitating to assault with- 
out ceremony the throne of the Bourbons when he 
did not find the authorities disposed to trample under 
foot all the liberties of the ancient Gallican Church. 
He even incurred a lawsuit by the unheard-of vio- 
lence of his language. He exclaimed, " I will show 
them what a priest is ! " alluding to the unconquer- 
able character of his resistance. Lamennais followed 
this line of operations and conduct up to the Revolu- 
tion of July, 1830, which in three days expelled the 
ancient dynasty to chastise it for having violated 
the charter of public liberties. 

This event led to a complete overturn in the politi- 
cal ideas of Lamennais. He who had been the hiero- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 65 

phant of the most excessive reaction, was, with no 
denial of his religious faith, converted in an instant 
to the cause of freedom. His ardent and passionate 
nature had received an electric shock from that great 
victory, worthily obtained without any alloy of san- 
guinary violence. He perceived that Catholicism 
was lost if it did not form an alliance with liberty, and 
he desired such an alliance as passionately as he had 
formerly combated it. His Ultramontanism had 
always made him very hostile to the influence of the 
civil power in religious affairs ; he took another step, 
and enthusiastically accepted the great principle of 
the separation of Church and State. With an 
ardent and outgushing soul like that of Lamennais, 
active propagation immediately followed the forma- 
tion of these convictions. In 1831 he founded a 
journal, VAvenh\ with the aid of a young priest 
destined to a great reputation, the Abbe Lacordaire, 
and that of the illustrious Montalembert. This pub- 
lication had considerable effect. It was the first 
time that Catholicism was seen in France associated 
with liberty, and holding democratic language. The 
elder clergy were stupefied, the younger ravished. 
Lamennais did not spare the new government more 
than he had the old : he and his assistants soon 
underwent a most exciting lawsuit for opening a 
primary school without authorization, founding their 
right on the promised freedom of public instruction. 
The great lawsuit was not to be at Paris but at 
Rome. The Jesuit and retrograde party had begun 
weaving its intrigues against the new party ; it was 
daily denounced to the Holy Father, particularly on 
account of the warm sympathy it had shown the 

Polish insurrection. Poland had indeed a claim on 

5 



66 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

the favor of the Pope, since she was Catholic; but 
the crime of her revolt effaced that merit. Lamen- 
nais was not the man long to endure these more or 
less underhanded and vailed accusations ; he declared 
that he and his companions appealed to the tribunal 
of the Holy Father, and he set off with them for the 
Eternal City. He has left us a circumstantial account 
of this journey in a book which is, to my thinking, 
the most moving of dramas, and is entitled, Les 
Affairs de Home. There we see the effect produced 
on his ardent soul by contact with the Pontifical 
Court. 

Do not forget that at this time Lamennais still 
believes in the Papacy. To him it is God's repre- 
sentative on earth ; from that he expects all light 
and deliverance, and he does not suspect that the 
sacred oracle will not justify his liberalism, which to 
him seems more and more the only means for the 
salvation of religious and civil society. He would 
gladly kiss the sacred soil he is visiting for the first 
time, and he confidently awaits the decisive word, 
the enfranchising word, which a divine mouth is 
about to speak. First, he must wait long for this 
decisive word ; his French impatience clashes with 
Italian sluggishness, or rather, he neither finds a point 
of support nor a point of resistance, but simply a 
policy of delay with infinite curves, fleeting, elusive 
contours, that supple duplicity of the Monsigneurs 
which always shuns clear and precise conclusions. 
He sees that they would bow him out, and that they 
hope that he too will be overcome by that soothing 
atmosphere so well fitted to lay the mind asleep and 
lead it to a passive docility. For a time, he champs 
the bit; what he witnesses is hardly suited to calm 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 67 

him. Like Luther, he lifts the vail that covers the 
real state of things, the splendid decoration which 
hides so much secret corruption ; he perceives above 
all that measureless venality which traffics in holy 
things, and would obtain all the treasures of Europe 
for the pardon of God. The storm rumbles in his 
soul, as we may perceive in his private correspond- 
ence, where we find terrible words like these : " At 
Rome every thing is sold. If they could, they would 
sell the Father, they would sell the Son, they would 
sell the Holy Ghost." Finally he grows tired; he 
urges the congregation charged with the manage- 
ment of his affairs, he wishes no wiles, he will have 
an answer. In vain are they angry at his furia 
Francese, (French fury,) they have to promise what 
he demands with such tenacity, and he leaves Rome 
on the strength of this pledge. After some weeks 
he receives the desired response, and this response 
is the famous Encyclical of Gregory XVI., which 
declares his dearest convictions abominable, fulmi- 
nates anathema against the most sacred liberties, and 
declares that freedom of conscience is a mortal pest. 
Thus the oracle had spoken ; but what Lamennais 
had taken for the voice of God is the voice of the 
Power of darkness, which can only curse the light 
and life. Imagine the shock that such a discovery 
must produce in a soul like that of Lamennais ! He 
strives, indeed, to act in submission. I believe he 
sincerely tried this course ; but he was not a man of 
Fenelon's sweet and malleable temper, who sur- 
rendered without delay at the summons of Rome. 
Nor was he capable of that convenient duplicity 
which so many Catholics use, who submit in appear- 
ance to the authority of the Holy See, let anath- 



68 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

eraas hurled directly at their ideas pass by like 
a summer rain, then lift up their heads and think 
and act exactly as though nothing had happened. 
Lamennais was not made of the same stuff as 
those pliant reeds which bend but do not break 
— and I honor him for it. For religious diplomacy 
is the worst of all. And he soon let loose all 
the indignation that was brewing in his heart. 
He did it like a volcano vomiting out lava in his 
book, Paroles cPun Croyant* written in prophetic 
style, and directed at all constituted and despotic 
authority in State and Church. 

This book promptly became a revolutionary Gos- 
pel, and was devoured by the people. Unhappily, it 
was no calm protest ; it overflowed with wrath and 
hatred in wonderful eloquence, but an eloquence that 
exceeded all due bounds. Tet Lamennais still pro- 
fessed faith in the Gospel. It was gradually effaced 
from his heart. He continued ever faithful to spirit- 
ualism ; he made it the basis of a vast philosophical 
system, but he resolutely rejected faith in revelation, 
and to him Jesus Christ was nothing but a Saint and 
a sublime Friend of the people. He multiplied in- 
cendiary pamphlets, and found himself again con- 
demned for offenses of the laws of the press. The 
Revolution of February came at the moment of his 
greatest popularity ; he founded a Republican, but not 
Socialist journal, in which he powerfully demanded 
the separation of Church and State. Then, on the 
establishment of the Empire, he withdrew to a retire- 
ment that he was never to leave. With his own 
hand he corrected a translation of Dante's Inferno. 

* Words of a Believer. 



Some, Italy, a^d the Council. 69 

Nothing could better suit his implacable genius. 
One imagines he sees him, lite the somber ferryman 
of Michael Angelo, turning aside from his boat all 
the rich and the mighty, that he may lead the poor 
and the oppressed into Paradise. He asked to be 
interred in the common grave like a pauper, without 
any religious ceremony. Solitary as were his last 
years, he nevertheless left a wake of fire behind him. 
He made a great rent in Catholicism. His old dis- 
ciples, Lacordaire and Montalembert, never com- 
pletely escaped his influence, though they separated 
from him when the great explosion came. Lacor- 
daire always suffered, in his brilliant career, from 
the suspicions of Rome ; he found himself incessantly 
menaced with condemnation because he vainly sub- 
mitted to the letter of the Pontifical Briefs, since he 
could not accept their spirit, against which his whole 
soul protested. As to Montalembert, he is now 
nearer than ever to the opinions of his youth. The 
step which he has taken in subscribing the demands 
of the German Catholics is considerable. He has 
submitted, but, as Alfieri said, like a quivering slave. 
After all, Lamennais remains a great terror to Rome. 
He would have been more alarming to her had he 
not gone over into the camp of pure philosophy, had 
he continued a Christian. Then he would not only 
have acted without, but within the Church, and 
would have served to rally about him all whom the 
excesses of TTltramontanism excite to resistance. The 
greatest danger to the Papacy, too, would be to 
encounter a new and Christian Lamennais. It seems 
that she is about to find him in the person of the il- 
lustrious barefooted Carmelite, who has just declared 
to the world that it is no longer possible for him to 



70 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

bow, passive and silent, under the yoke of the actual 
Ultramontanism. 

Father Hyacinthe is the third pilgrim to Rome 
of whom I wish to speak; he leads us back to the 
center of the religious conflicts of the moment, 
and to the focus of the complications that precede 
the great Council. I shall remember all my life 
the day when I first listened to this great preacher. 
I had vaguely heard of a new star in the Catholic 
pulpit. Through chance, I entered one Sunday, in 
the autumn of 1865, the vast cathedral of Notre 
Dame. I was immediately arrested by the powerful 
language resounding there before an immense au- 
dience ; it was indeed great and noble eloquence, 
proceeding from a heart sacredly moved, and travers- 
ing a brilliant imagination, which made both ideas 
and men live and palpitate, and possessed that elec- 
tricity which communicates with such extraordinary 
rapidity to a large assembly. Since Lacordaire, I 
had never heard any thing like it in a Catholic pul- 
pit. But what was more remarkable than his talents 
was the substance of the discourse, free from all vain 
superstition, and permeated with the warmest love 
for Jesus Christ. I felt at once that this man had a 
great future before him, and I was not deceived. 
That very evening, in a general meeting of the Evan- 
gelical Alliance, I spoke with emotion of what I had 
just heard, and of that sentiment of warm and grand- 
ly true Catholicity which I had felt at the foot of 
Father Hyacinthe's pulpit.. Who, then, was the em- 
inent orator that was suddenly rising from obscurity 
to a place in the front rank ? His garb indicated 
that he had not been content with the priesthood, 
but that he had desired a place in the Carmelite Or- 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 71 

der, one of the most rigid in Catholicism. I speedily 
learned that he belonged to a family well known in 
the French University ; that his father, M. Layson, 
had been rector of an academy at Pau ; that one of 
his uncles, who died early, had for a moment awak- 
ened great hopes as a poet ; that one of his brothers, 
formerly a monk, and now in the secular clergy, was 
known for his talents and his liberalism. He was 
born, then, in 1827, and grew up in a cultivated and 
religious circle. Early called to ecclesiastical life, 
he had studied theology in the best of our seminaries 
— that St. Sulpice whence Renan proceeded. In his 
constant aspiration to the ideal he had not hesitated 
to embrace the monastic life, which is presented by 
Catholicism as the highest degree of piety, because it 
most completely lays man in the dust, though unfor- 
tunately it gives him a feeling of merit in this act of 
abasement. Father Hyacinthe had been heard in a 
few provincial churches, and immediately the effect 
of his discourses had been felt. The Archbishop of 
Paris, Monseigneur Darbois, an intelligent and truly 
liberal man, had hastened to open the pulpit of Notre 
Dame to him, and he had there acquired at the out- 
set that royalty by divine right which is exercised by 
eloquence, and is surely one of the noblest gifts when 
it is wielded in the service of truth. Such was the 
outward history of Father Hyacinthe up to the time 
when I first heard him. Since then his influence 
has only grown. Multitudes thronged the cathedral 
two hours before he mounted the steps of the pulpit. 
In each new series of discourses a new advance was 
remarked. Those on independent morality had 
an extraordinary reverberation. No subject could 
be more opportune in face of the mad attempts 



72 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

made to separate the moral ideal from the ideal of 
God. 

It was observed that the orator was extremely 
careful to prove the close connection between Chris- 
tianity and all generous causes, and that it alone can 
conduct democracy to her true destinies. In all his 
words was felt a burning love for Jesus Christ, and 
of liberty. But what was most significant in his 
discourses was the freedom with which he honored 
goodness wherever found, without thinking himself 
obliged to recognize it only under the particular seal 
of his own Church. He even dwelt with emphasis 
on the great aspects of Protestant nations, and espe- 
cially their respect for the Holy Scriptures, and their 
scrupulous observance of the Sabbath. He ex- 
claimed, " If Prussia conquered at Sadowa be not 
astonished, for you will find the Gospels in the knap- 
sack of every soldier. This is what tempers strong 
nations." The Ultramontane party must naturally 
have thought such language very improper, yet they 
dared not openly attack Father Hyacinthe. They 
merely passed him over in complete silence, while 
lauding the most insignificant preachers of its school. 
It is now known that a warning, disguised as friendly 
advice, had already come from Pome, which be- 
trayed a very natural disquietude. Father Hya- 
cinthe made his first visit to Rome. He preached 
there during Lent in the Church of St. Louis of the 
French, much admired, much watched also, and quite 
ill at ease in this immense gilded cage, whose grates 
are admirably wrought, but are nevertheless grates. 
We have likewise an undeniable index of the im- 
pression m-ade upon him then by Rome in the marked 
liberalism of the sermons which he preached at Paris 



Bome, Italy, and the Council. 73 

shortly after his return. Those who heard him in 
the autumn of 1868 perceived, with more or less dis- 
tinctness, that a decisive crisis was approaching for 
the great preacher. Never had the arches of the 
cathedral resounded with such utterances. These 
were not merely flashes of Christian liberalism ap- 
pearing from time to time ; no, the entire discourse 
was .permeated and overflowed with it in growing 
eloquence. The subject was the Church. At the 
outset Father Hyacinthe declared that he would not 
make it an implacable sect ; that he saw it after the 
spirit wherever hearts beat with love for Jesus Christ 
and humanity. In support of this generous thesis 
he magnificently developed the parable of the good 
Samaritan. u Behold," he said, "suffering humanity 
laid across the path. He that shall lift him up will 
represent the true Church. A priest passes ; he is 
very orthodox, this priest, but he passes by the dying 
man ; after him a Levite, passes on ; he too is 
orthodox, but he also passes on indifferent. Who 
pauses ? Who lifts up the poor wounded man, 
binds up his wounds, and conducts him to the inn ? 
It is a Samaritan. Do you know what the Samar- 
itan was for the synagogue ? The most abominable 
being. When the Jewish vocabulary had exhausted 
its abusive terms the most cruel of all still remained, 
which was to fling in the face of an enemy this out- 
rageous name. The Samaritan was the heretic of 
the time. Well, he is the Christian in this parable, 
for he alone has the compassion of Christ." In an- 
other discourse Father Hyacinthe took a further 
step : he strongly insisted on the priesthood of par- 
ents, and complained of its abandonment through 
culpable negligence. " No priest can take the place 



74 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of the father and mother beside their child ;" and he 
made sweet and holy tears flow as he exhibited the 
beauty of this household priesthood. He cried out, 
" I have just returned from England, where I saw 
fathers on their knees amid their children and serv- 
ants, repeating the prayer that our Lord taught us. 
Nothing in the w r orld will keep me from saying that 
I there saw true Christians." Finally, these famous 
discourses closed with a peal of thunder. The ora- 
tor contrasted the Church of Pharisaism with the 
Church of the Spirit. He stigmatized in burning 
language the religion of form, and of the letter which 
can only curse, and he show T ed that this alone had 
torn accents of indignation from the meek and gentle 
Master. The synagogue learned to its cost that the 
wrath of the Lamb is awful. Though he confined 
himself to generalities, all his auditors knew whom 
and what he meant. This was too much, not for the 
Archbishop of Paris, but for the controlling influences 
of the Church. They hastened to send the impru- 
dent Carmelite to Pome. For him this was the de- 
cisive journey; it w T as the final pilgrimage which 
makes reformers. There he learned from the mouth 
of his superior that the time for gentle dealing with 
him could not be prolonged — he could measure with 
a glance the depth of the gulf that had been hol- 
lowed out between himself and official Catholicism. 
An interview with the Pope, whose details have not 
transpired, did not lead him to recoil a step. He 
now understood how- well fitted was that monastic 
life, which had appeared to him under such fine 
colors in his youthful illusions, to mutilate human 
life and abase it under a degrading yoke. He felt 
the full weight of the chains of absolute obedience. 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 75 

In a word, Rome produced the decisive impression 
on him which she never fails to produce on generous 
and upright souls who have seen the bands of their 
early blindness fall. He returned to Paris quite 
troubled, not yet clear in his aims, but inflexibly de- 
cided to obey his conscience toward and against all. 
You know what followed ; you remember that gen- 
erous speech made before the Peace Congress, for 
which penance was enjoined upon him by an inti- 
mated order. 

I have nothing to add to facts known to the whole 
world, to the simple and sublime letter which an- 
nounced that the sacrifice was consummated, and 
that Father Hyacinthe was advancing, confident 
in God, to meet opprobrium and the unknown, 
like Abraham leaving the tents of his fathers 
to attempt a redoubtable mission. Surely he will 
not be deceived in his faith. We must await the 
close of the Council to learn whether his acts and 
words will find an echo in the bosom of Catholicism. 
But it is certain that when he shall openly engage in 
his Christian mission among our French population 
he will collect vast multitudes, and be able to win to 
Jesus Christ a large number of souls who are not to 
be reached by the ordinary means of influence. 
They strive to get rid of this formidable adversary 
at Rome by the vilest slanders, but none of these 
poisoned arrows will reach him. at the height of pub- 
lic esteem to which he has attained. 

A Dominican monk, Father Des Caillot, has lately 
published a very curious book on the interior disci- 
pline of the Order of St. Dominic, from which he has 
just broken away. He lays bare, in a multitude of 
details, that frightful spiritual tyranny which makes 



76 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

man a mere machine or a corpse, according to the 
formula of the Jesuits. Father Des Caiilot relates 
that one day when he was seized with remorse for 
very reprehensible deeds enjoined upon him by his 
superior, the famous Dono Gruisanga, with a view to 
generous collections, the latter answered him, " Don't 
trouble yourself; I am to answer for the deeds I com- 
mand you to perform ; they do not concern you.' 5 
This is truly the Perinde ac cadaver. Only here it 
is the corpse of conscience. Is it not highest murder 
to slay souls ! All these revelations are very impor- 
tant on the eve of the Council. 

The Fathers w T ho are to have seats in it are begin- 
ning to arrive in large numbers, especially those from 
the most distant countries. The preparatory com- 
mittees, called congregations, are hard at work. 
They are striving by all possible means to prepare 
men for the expected results. A very important 
publication has been this week issued from the press 
of the Civiltd Cattolica, the great organ of Jesuitism. 
It is entitled "A Summary History of (Ecumenical 
Councils." Its aim is very plain ; the anonymous 
author, who evidently speaks in the name of the 
Roman managers, labors to prove that it is not neces- 
sary for a Council to be long that it may be good ; 
on the contrary, the best have been the shortest, and 
their merits are complacently enumerated. A few 
weeks are enough to effect excellent work. I should 
think so, when once it is understood that good Coun- 
cils are those which show' themselves docile toward 
the Holy Father and surrender their powers into his 
hands! Why prolong vain deliberations which are 
after all a simulacrum ? The ideal Council would be 
one that opened and closed the same day, in one in- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 77 

stant, by a great acclamation to the Infallible Pope 
and the Immaculate Virgin. 

It is evident from this work that the favorite plan 
of Rome is to have a council of a few w T eeks ? duration 
that may solemnly and forever pronounce the abdica- 
tion of the Church, or rather the Episcopacy, in favor 
of the Holy See. Henceforth it would be truly use- 
less to convoke new Councils ; they would not even 
play the part of the old parliaments of the France 
of Louis XIV., which merely registered the royal 
edicts. When once it is understood that all pontifi- 
cal briefs fall directly from heaven, it will suffice for 
the Holy Father to publish them, that Catholic Chris- 
tianity may receive them on its knees. This morning 
announcements of new publications on the Assump- 
tion of the Virgin are posted up on the w^alls of 
Home. This also is one of the dogmas which they 
would have proclaimed by the high assembly. It 
would do well to reveal to the world the historic 
documents which its supernatural inspiration has en- 
abled it to discover, since the fact in question must 
have had witnesses. Where are they except in the 
pictures of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio. This is 
w r hat people of little faith would be glad to learn. 

The Fope is very confident of the issue of the 
Council, just as a sovereign is sure of a legislature 
which he has nominated by his agents or by his 
state council. He has given a truly astonishing proof 
of his confidence. On the confines of the Transte- 
verine district rises a hill w^hence w T e have certainly 
one of the finest views in the world. On this hill is 
built San Pietro in Montana, a doubly sacred place, 
where tradition locates the martyrdom of the Apostle. 
You trace in its least windings the course of the 



78 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

Tiber, which, loses itself in the rank vegetation ; to 
the right is the great city with its innumerable domes. 
Before you rise the Sabine Mountains, with their har- 
monious lines. The spectacle has a majestic gran- 
deur that is quite unparalleled. There, before the 
Church of St. Peter in the Mount, the Holy Father is 
rearing at this very moment a column in honor of the 
Council, and as a sign of its success. Surely his na- 
ture is hardly that of Thomas, who must see to be- 
lieve ; his faith is a strong " evidence of things not 
seen." This confidence would be much more touch- 
ing and admirable were it not founded on past suc- 
cess, on the docility of the Episcopacy in accepting the 
dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and on means 
w x ell known here for acting on recalcitrant minds. 
This column of expectation is nevertheless a curious 
index of the imperturbable assurance of the Papacy 
on the eve of the Council. 

Last week the anniversary of the battle of Mentana 
was celebrated with great pomp. There was a mass 
and a banquet, and the officers of the Pontifical 
Zouaves swore to spill their blood for the Holy See. 
Just now they only spill the liquors they drink from 
shop to shop, in the most idle garrison life conceiv- 
able. The regular French troops are encamped in 
the provinces ; here we only see the famous Zouaves 
and a few Swiss, whose party-colored uniform sug- 
gests the rainbow. .All this military array devoted 
to the defense of the Holy Father deserves to be 
dwelt on a moment, for it brings before us one of the 
gravest questions of contemporary politics. This 
will be the theme of my next letter. 

E. de Pressense. 



Home, Italy, and the Council. 79 



LETTER IV. 

THE ROMAN QUESTION. 

Peculiar Position of Pome : The Pope guarded by Foreign Troops ; 
The Practical Phase of the Matter — The Origin of the Temporal 
Power — Its Security under the Old Regime — The Shock of the 
Revolution of 1793 — An Election Trick — Napoleon I. and the 
Papacy — Count d'Haussonville and Father Thenier — The Pact of 
1815— The Revolution of 1830 — Its Consequences — Foreigners 
first guard the Pope — 1847 and its Changes — Election of Pius IX. 
— His Position and Measures — The Pope in Exile — Intervention 
of the French — Craft of the Prince President — Return of the 
Pope — His Rule — The Italian Movement: Its Results — With- 
drawal of the French — Garibaldi Advances on Rome — Return of 
the French — Arguments of the Catholics — The Near Close of the 
French Occupation. 

Rome, November, 1869. 

I told you, at the close of ray last letter, that Rome 
is placed in the peculiar situation of being under the 
direct guardianship of foreigners, for the national 
forces there are insignificant, while the troops 
furnished by other countries are considerable in pro- 
portion to the number of inhabitants in the Pontif- 
ical States. A powerful nation, in particular, shel- 
ters under its flag the power of the Holy Father, 
which would long ago have been overturned but for 
its protection. Thus the temporal power of the 
Papacy exists and lasts only through succor from 
abroad ; that is, it no longer exists of itself. Aban- 
doned to its own strength it is certain that it would 
fall in twenty-four hours before the antipathy of the 
populace. If there be an abnormal situation in the 
world surely it is this ; the crises which threaten it 



80 Kome Italy and the Council. 

are also renewed at regular intervals; the Roman 
Question is the order of the day in European politics, 
in such a way that it will not lose that status until 
it shall be finally settled. It may be adjourned, but 
not set aside. In reality no question is more impor- 
tant ; it presents, in a most inextricable knot, the 
great problem of the union of the temporal and the 
spiritual powers ; it brings it to light from the theo- 
retic stand-point through the discussions it awakens, 
and it certainly has contributed much for the last ten 
years to enlighten the public on this point, and to 
rally the liberal party on the separation of Church 
and State, for their union at Rome enables us to lay 
our finger on their grayest mischiefs. But the 
Roman Question has also a purely practical impor- 
tance ; the mutual relations of civil and religious 
power are regulated in most European lands by concor- 
dats which were drawn up on the basis of the political 
sovereignty of the Holy Father ; should that sover- 
eignty disappear, these concordats would be immedi- 
ately abolished by that fact ; the relations of the two 
powers would have to be constituted on a new basis, 
and, with the wind that is up, that basis would, per- 
haps, be that which your grand Republic so gloriously 
laid down when it first proclaimed and applied the 
great principle of the absolute separation of Church 
and State. It is very important, then, for us to know 
what supports prop up that rampart, which, of 
itself, would grow weak, and be laid in the dust at 
the first whiff of internal freedom. By showing 
how fragile in themselves and unjust these supports 
are, we shall the better comprehend the singular 
condition of this country and all that we are entitled 
to expect, for the latter part of the century, in the 



Pome, Italy, and the Council. 81 

way of political renovations. It is likewise certain 
that the Papacy will seek to strengthen its temporal 
power by some action in the Council, and that 
anxiety for it will weigh on that high assembly. I 
shall begin with a rapid history of the question, then 
we shall see what stand-point the Catholics who defend 
the temporal power of the Pope assume. 

I shall not dwell on its first establishment. Its 
most intrepid champions dare not make it a primi- 
tive institution, for they know too well that, in the 
matter of domains, the early conductors of the Church 
of Pome had only the space needful for their burial. 
The catacombs are there under their very feet to 
show that the early condition of the Church, like that 
of its Master, was one of persecution. The temporal 
power of the Pope was formed, like any other 
sovereignty in the Middle Ages, by a series of inci- 
dents, each less edifying than its predecessor ; apart 
from a few donations like that of the great Countess 
Matilda, spoliation has played an important part in 
the extension of the pontifical domains. Csesar Borgia 
rendered it important services, and that name tells 
all. The pretended donations of Constantine and 
his successors are impostures demonstrated to all 
the world except Pome. The false decretals are the 
most distinguished, and also the most fruitful, of his- 
toric lies. The Papacy is in the position of a pro- 
prietor who possesses his domains under a forged 
title-deed. That he should profit by long possession, 
that he should silently, and without quarreling, culti- 
vate his estate, may be conceived from the stand- 
point of a none-too-scrupulous delicacy ; but that he 
should lift up his voice in the country and cover the 

frauds and spoliations of his ancestors with the name 

6 



82 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of God, would be scandal and confusion. This is, in 
fact, the conduct of the Papacy. It would gladly 
win credit for a second dogma of immaculate con- 
ception, and cause the foundation of its political 
sovereignty to pass for a divine work, pure from all 
human alloy. It will succeed in this design less 
than ever in a century, where the past is inundated 
with a vivid and implacable light through the prog- 
ress of historical science. 

The Holy Father might peacefully enjoy his tem- 
poral power through the entire period of the ancient 
rule, when the idea of popular sovereignty appeared 
only as an impossible dream. The shock of the 
Reform did not modify the political condition of Italy. 
Yainly was Rome taken and sacked by the Constable 
de Bourbon in the fortunes of war, the Pontifical 
domination was never brought into question in an 
age when the Church was every-where incorporated 
with the State, and the Throne was backed by the 
Altar. Every thing was destined to change with the 
new era introduced by the French Revolution, which 
shook all thrones, and almost every-where awakened 
democratic sentiments. The Papacy, guided by the 
sure instinct of despotism, perceived at once that 
there was her true enemy ; she was not content with 
protesting, as she might rightfully do, against the 
encroachments of the revolution on purely religious 
territory, and condemning that famous civil consti 
tution of the clergy which was an essay at revolu- 
tionary theocracy, since the new power aimed of 
itself to regulate simple religious affairs. The 
Papacy would have been entirely right in putting 
forth the most vigorous appeals in favor of those unfor- 
tunate French priests who were odiously persecuted 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 83 

for refusing an oath offensive to their consciences, 
even though it might have been answered that they 
did but apply her own principles to herself. But 
she assumed a very different part; she fulminated 
anathema on anathema against the principles of the 
New France ; she took part openly for the ancient 
order of things ; in a word, she put herself into open 
w r ar with the Republic. It was very natural that she 
should undergo the consequences of such conduct, 
and that, as she had put herself on the level of ordi- 
nary political powers, she should share their common 
fortune. She did also share the terrible blows in- 
flicted by France on Italy. The Roman State was 
dismantled, the Pope went to die in exile — and the 
Pontifical States only regained a little quiet by 
allowing themselves to be dismembered at the treaty 
of Tolentino, signed by the young General who 
had just astonished the w T orld by his overwhelming 
victories. 

Here belongs a most curious episode, which has 
been fully revealed in the Memoirs of Cardinal Con- 
salvi, a capital document in contemporary history. 
The author has narrated, with astonishing frankness, 
the circumstances of the election of the substitute for 
Pius VI. in the year 1800. We may judge from the 
manner in which he describes the intrigues of a Con- 
clave what the inspiration of a Council is worth, since 
the results of both assemblies are placed by Catholic 
orthodoxy under the direct influence of the Holy 
Spirit. The Conclave assembled at Venice was in 
the greatest embarrassment on account of the oppo- 
site intrigues of the powers which had their agents 
among the cardinals. Strange thing. Austria and 
Naples, which were then at the head of the Catholic 



84 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

States, had only one project in mind, namely, to get 
a Pope of tlie right stamp named, who would permit 
them to retain the fragments of the pontifical domain, 
of which these States had taken possession under pre- 
text of exercising a salutary protection over them. 
The cardinals who were not sold to these two pow- 
ers would not listen to such a nomination. They 
did not know how to get out of these inextricable 
difficulties ; they had, indeed, an excellent candidate, 
full of piety and gentleness, who also had the great 
recommendation of being personally agreeable to the 
puissant Dictator, who had just taken possession of 
power in France. This was Cardinal Chiaramonte. 
Another Cardinal moved heaven and earth in the 
conclave, and exerted a preponderating influence. 
The task was to gain him over to the proposed com- 
bination ; but as he was a proud and independent 
man, they knew that he would only support meas- 
ures resolved on by himself, or which he thought he 
had taken up of his own motion, and there was noth- 
ing else to do but to get his private secretary, an in- 
significant Abbe, to suggest to him the plan they 
wished to have succeed. He fell completely into 
the snare, and came gravely to declare to those who 
had secretly whispered his lesson to him, that after 
much reflection he had come to think that the elec- 
tion of Chiaramonte was the sole means of salvation 
for the Conclave. His inspirers loudly praised his 
superior wisdom, and thus Pius VII. was nominated, 
according to the recital of a Cardinal of the Holy 
Church, who was subsequently his Secretary of State, 
and whose testimony certainly is not open to suspi- 
cion. Do we not seem to witness a low-grade com- 
edy? Does not the superb Cardinal, who gives the 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 85 

idea of others as his own opinion, remind you of 
that personage so clear to the Italian people, who 
does whatever you please, thanks to the skillfully- 
handled string behind the curtains? To call him 
by his proper name, is he not a merry-andrew ? 
This anecdote, whose authenticity is unquestionable, 
does not fail to illuminate in its own way the great 
pending question of the personal infallibility of the 
Holy Father. Behold, then, in what way and by 
what measures he whom they would now make the 
very organ of the Holy Spirit may be called to the 
Pontificate. An intrigue, for which one should blush 
in a political election, would be enough to give the 
new Council its celestial inspiration. For the grand 
exhibition of infallibility that they are getting ready 
it would be better to close up the green rooms, and 
not allow profane eyes to see the background of the 
theater. 

The pontificate of Pius VII. was quite agitated. 
As for himself, he was worth more than the system 
which he personified. He was a priest full of gentle- 
ness, uprightness, and always desirous of obeying his 
own conscience ; but it was a terrible thing for him 
that he had to deal with the most violent and cun- 
ning despot of the modern world. The Count 
d'Haussonville has just published a most remarkable 
book on the relations of Napoleon I. and Pius VII., 
remarkable, not onlv for its talent, but for its thor- 
ough investigation, and abundance of unpublished 
documents, which cast the most vivid light on that 
important period in the religious or ecclesiastical his- 
tory of the nineteenth century. Here we learn espe- 
cially how false is the pretense of those apologists for 
the temporal power who see in it the safeguard of \ho 



86 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

independence of the Holy Father. It is certain that 
all the faults committed by Pius VII. are attributa- 
ble to his anxiety to regain intact the domain of the 
Holy See. If in the famous Concordat of 1802 he 
makes concessions on the constitution of the Church, 
if he comes to Paris to crown Bonaparte, still stained 
with the blood of D'Enghien, it is because the Gen- 
eral, then omnipotent, has perfidiously hinted to him 
promises of territorial aggrandizement which he is 
fully determined not to keep. His unlucky power, 
which gives him no real means of self-defense, is like 
the ever-vulnerable heel of Achilles ; there precisely 
is his spiritual power attainted. His imperious pro- 
tector makes him forsake the neutrality which alone 
befits his pontifical character, and wishes to impose 
on him measures hostile to any given power with 
which he is at war. The Pope resists gently, but 
with perseverance. Napoleon, intoxicated with the 
triumphs of Austerlitz and Jena, cannot allow any 
sort of resistance ; he will have every thing bend to 
his yoke. He who had boasted of being the restorer 
of altars, a new Constantine, did not hesitate, after 
unheard-of violence in language, to have the Pope 
carried off from the Vatican by his police, and flung 
into a State prison, where he subjected him to odious 
treatment. You must read in the fine account of M. 
d'Haussonville all the episodes of this infamous per- 
secution of an aged man, shut up in secret, and sep- 
arated from all his counselors. 

The perfidy matches the brutality of the means. 
M. d'Haussonville has found proof that the physician 
of the Holy Father was bought up, and that he was 
paid to act in his way on the nerves of the unhappy 
victim, who had hours of hallucination. At the same 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 87 

time, all the members of the French and Italian 
clergy who did not admire these high exploits were 
hurried into prison or exile; students for the priest- 
hood were sent to the army, to the posts most dan- 
gerous for their health, where they nearly all died. 
Rome had "been annexed to the French Empire, and 
Napoleon caused his scribes to prepare very fine dem- 
onstrations of the incompatibility of the temporal and 
spiritual power; of the gentle law of the Gospel, which 
would have the priest remain in his own domain, 
and is summed up in the great precept of obedience 
to the prince — a precept which the imperial contro- 
versialist caused to be inserted in the first line of the 
catechism published by his order, with the menace of 
eternal damnation to him who would not love and 
serve Napoleon I. with all his heart, with all his 
soul, and with all his strength, while naturally hating 
his English or Austrian neighbor as the Emperor him- 
self hated him. Thus Napoleon wished to abolish the 
union of the two powers at Rome only to unite them 
the better on his own head. He wished to be the Czar 
of the West, and to put ukases in the place of briefs. 
Surely the remedy was worse than the disease, and we 
do not hesitate to justify in this quarrel the unhappy 
Pontiff, who was weak only one day — when he signed 
the mocking Concordat of Fontainebleau — a weak- 
ness quickly redeemed by the most honorable recanta- 
tion. It would seem as though, if the book of M. 
d'Haussonville ought to meet a good reception any 
where, it would be at Rome, since it greatly exalts 
the memory of Pius YII. The praise would be the 
more valuable because it comes from a perfectly in- 
dependent man, who does not belong to the Catholic 
party. But not at all, His book is ill received. So 



88 Bome, Italy, and the Council. 

much so, that they have caused a refutation to be 
fabricated by Father Thenier, with a great display 
of diplomatic documents. This refutation has been 
made with the evident co-operation of the French 
government, which has largely opened its most secret 
archives to the reverend Father, while they had been 
hermetically closed against Count d'Haussonville ; a 
fact which did not hinder his having, thanks to his 
extensive connections, the most curious and authentic 
documents. The interest of the French government 
in this affair is clear; it would, as far as possible, 
justify the chief of its dynasty and wash itself of the 
just opprobrium merited by its violence toward an 
aged man from whom it had obtained all the conces- 
sions compatible with his pontifical charge. But 
what is inconceivable in this justification of Napoleon 
I. is its having the Holy See for an ally, whose in- 
terest ought to be of an opposite kind. In fact, what- 
ever exalts the Emperor abases the Fope. One arm 
of the scales cannot ascend unless the other descend. 
On reflection we find two quite profound reasons, 
fully worthy of the Jesuits, for the publication of the 
huge book of Father Thenier. The first is, that the 
cause is more important than the man ; now the book 
of M. d'Haussonville, while awakening a very just 
sympathy for the unlucky old man who was both the 
victim and plaything of imperial despotism, paints 
with great frankness his tergiversations, anguish, and 
the sudden changes in his decisions. Now it is dan- 
gerous to give the world such a spectacle at the very 
moment when you would make the Fope a god. It 
is much better not to make the hearts of men so ten- 
der toward him, and conceal that embarrassing past 
in the accumulated waste paper of documents bor. 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 89 

rowed from the heirs of the persecutors of Pius VII. 
The second reason is, that those old persecutors are 
now the necessary protectors of the Holy See. They 
are really detested, because it is hard to lean on a 
power so slightly Catholic and so versatile, but it is 
important to treat it well, especially at the moment 
of striking the great blow in the General Council. 
That is the only possible explanation of this strange 
publication, which I ought to call attention to as a 
very characteristic symptom of the present situation 
of the Pontifical Power. 

Let lis pass rapidly over the period of the Restora- 
tion. In 1815 the Papacy recovered its domain al- 
most intact. It is related that at the Congress of 
Yienna, where Europe was pieced out according to 
the will of the conquerors of the moment, Cardinal 
Consalvi, Secretary of State to the Holy Father and 
his representative, said with a smile to Prince Met- 
ternich, " We will give you whatever you like on 
high, but give us another city or district." The 
Pontifical Government, like the Bourbons and the 
French Emigrants, had neither learned nor forgotten 
any thing during the period of its exile. It came 
back with all its old errors, and the long peace which 
it enjoyed was turned to advantage by it in com- 
pletely re-establishing the old despotism. It fancied 
that its subordinates were perfectly satisfied because 
no complaint reached it; thanks to the regime of 
repression which prevented any manifestation of pub- 
lic opinion. It is the bloody saying of Tacitus again : 
Silentum faciunt et pacem appellant — They make 
silence and call that peace. As all Italy was sub- 
jected to the same rule and was bowed under the 
saber of Austria, the liberal contagion was easily ar- 



90 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

rested on the frontiers, and the Pontifical troops, 
despite their meager valor, which was somewhat 
elevated by Swiss mercenaries, sufficed to maintain 
calmness from a political stand-point, if they did not 
always suffice to subdue brigandism, the scourge of 
Southern Italy. The Revolution of July, 1830, dis- 
turbed this convenient lethargy of the Italian nations, 
who, in the preceding period, had only had a few sud- 
den fits of conspiracy, promptly stifled in the blood 
of their authors. It was fickle France again, that can 
never be reckoned on, which uttered the cry of liberty 
after having in three days overturned the throne 
of her perjured King. The shock was formidable 
throughout Europe, and we cannot say what it might 
have produced had not the first aim of Louis Philippe 
been to shun all foreign wars, and introduce his 
dynasty into the European Council. Yet the ap- 
peasement could not be so prompt as he desired. 
While Poland shook her chains and entered, on an 
heroic struggle — while Belgium got clear of Dutch 
domination — all Italy strove to rise up ; but she could 
not succeed. The Pontifical yoke rested in its full 
weight on Romagna, without the compensation of 
the splendors of Rome, which procure great profit 
for the inhabitants of the Eternal City, and satisfy 
them so long as they are content with being church 
beadles and keepers of museums. That rich province 
also lifted up the standard of insurrection in 1831 ; 
it had the encouragement of seeing two princes of 
the Bonaparte family take arms in its cause ; these 
were both the sons of Queen Hortense; one died in 
consequence of the expedition, the other is now the 
Emperor of the French ; and some pretend that he 
has not in reality changed, and that he does not love 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 91 



the government of the priests more than in his youth. 
The revolt of Romagna was too isolated to succeed, 
and it was promptly stifled. Nevertheless the Holy 
Father perceived that he could no longer trust en- 
tirely to his own troops; he obtained an Austrian 
garrison to occupy Bologna. France, unwilling to 
surrender all Italy to the influence of Yienna, and 
particularly the Pontifical States, with w T hich she was 
to have constant connections, sent a garrison to An- 
cona. The defense of the temporal power of the 
Holy Father by foreign troops dates back to that 
period. 

The French bayonets nevertheless disturbed him, 
because he knew that they were too intelligent to ap- 
prove all that they protected ; he was well pleased to 
see them resuming the road to France in 1838. From 
that hour the Papacy was able to exercise its heavy 
and senile despotism in full security, carefully meas- 
uring out the respirable air to the intelligence of its 
subjects; killing, as far as it could, the spirit of inde- 
pendence and progress; stifling it in secret dungeons 
whenever it exploded; exiling all who disquieted it- 
self; and merely offering its people the monotonous 
pomp of an almost idolatrous worship to relieve their 
weariness in a narrow and wretched existence, 
whence all the great interests of modern life were 
carefully banished. That was the fine time, the good 
old time, of which the Roman prelacy only thinks 
w T ith bitter regret. 

However, about 1847, every thing was changed ; 
again the breath of freedom breathed over Europe. 
France showed herself discontented with the neither 
grand nor frank policy of the old King Louis Philippe, 
whose fault it was to see only the impertinent rancor 



92 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

of a conquered opposition in a very general and quite 
profound movement. From north to south, Italy 
prepared to revolt against Austria and those princes 
who were her docile lieutenants. The King of Pied- 
mont, Charles Albert, took the direction of the na- 
tional movement, and began by giving a Constitution 
to his people. Far stranger thing ! Gregory XYI. 
was replaced on the Pontifical throne by a liberal 
priest. Pius IX. proclaimed a general amnesty and 
sketched out a Constitution for his people, which left 
a large part to laymen and to their control. His 
name was adored in the -whole peninsula, and for a 
moment he became the standard-bearer of the nation. 
But there are edifices so worm-eaten that they cannot 
even be repaired without tottering from base to crest. 
The Holy Father perceived this only too soon. The 
tocsin of the Revolution of 1848 every-where precipi- 
tated affairs; all Italy was up with the cry on her 
lips, Fuori i stranieri! — Away with foreigners! 
Charles Albert put himself at the head of the liber- 
ating army. The King of Naples for a moment pre- 
tended to follow him, but it was only till he could 
recall the troops needed to check his subjects ; he shot 
or sent to the galleys all the Liberals that he could 
lay hands on, after having abominably deceived them 
with a lying constitution. It was the hour to judge 
of the inextricable impropriety of the temporal sover- 
eignty of the Pope. He was at once the common 
Father of the faithful and the sovereign of an Italian 
Principality. If he made war on Austria, he w^ould 
lose the former title ; if he did not, he w r ouid incur 
the execration of his subjects, who passionately desired 
the enfranchisement of their Italian Fatherland. For 
a moment, the Pope was carried away by the desires 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 93 

of his people; he sent a brigade, commanded by 
General Durando, to support the operations of Victor 
Emmanuel, but he saw speedily that he was thus sac- 
rificing his part as the chief of the Church, and fol- 
lowed the example of the King of Naples. This was 
the first discord between him and his people, who no 
longer desired such subjection, and had, more or less, 
imposed on him a constitution which the illustrious 
economist, Rossi, was charged to apply. But it was 
an impossible task; an infallible priest cannot be a 
constitutional sovereign ; all the more so because re- 
ligious or ecclesiastical affairs are constantly blended 
at Rome with political affairs. Moreover, the effort 
was bruskly interrupted by the abominable murder 
of M. di Rossi, on the very steps of the Legislature, 
which he was about to open in the Pope's name. 
The latter succeeded in taking to flight, and betook 
himself to the protection of the King of Naples at 
Gaeta while the Republic was proclaimed at Rome, 
under the influence and preponderating direction of 
Mazzini. 

It is to this period that the present French occupa- 
tion goes back, and it is very important distinctly to 
note its origin. It must be said that its origin was 
a distinguished trick, of which the French National 
Assembly and the Republican authorities at Rome 
were the victims. The business is not to defend the 
Republic of Mazzini ; that is not the question. No 
matter if that administration should seem hardly suited 
to the character and situation of the Roman people. 
It ought to fall only before the manifest wishes of 
the people, and not before a foreign invasion. If the 
latter were legitimate, all others are equally so ; and 
in the last century the Prussians were entirely right 



94 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

in passing the French frontier to destroy the hot-bed 
of revolution at Paris. But particularly, it was in- 
admissible to lie to France and to Italy to disguise 
the true aim of such an expedition. ~Now this was 
done in the most indisputable manner. In the spring 
of the year 1849 France had not yet replaced the 
Republican Assembly of 1848 by the Legislative As- 
sembly, of which a majority was committed to reac- 
tion. Prince Napoleon, President elect, after the 
second of December of the previous year, was fol- 
lowing with docility the advice of the reactionist 
party, to which likewise he chiefly owed his election. 
He was fully decided to interfere at Rome to give 
satisfaction to the Catholic party, of which he stood 
in great need for his ulterior designs ; but he, as well 
as his advisers, knew that there was no way to obtain 
authority to intervene from an Assembly which was 
very firm, very honest and moderate, but inflexibly 
attached to republican principles. He used subter- 
fuge. Some months earlier, General Cavaignac had 
prepared a maritime expedition solely to protect the 
Holy Father. The Prince President augmented the 
number of vessels and troops which were to take pari 
in the expedition, and demanded of the National As- 
sembly authority for their departure, still to watch 
over the security of the Holy Father, and to counter- 
balance the influence of Austria, which, after the 
great victories of Radetzky over the unfortunate 
Charles Albert, was becoming preponderant. The 
latter reason was well suited to touch a French as- 
sembly. It granted the subsidies demanded on a 
report from M. Jules Favre. A few days passed, 
and people learned with stupefaction that, scarcely 
disembarked at Civita, Yecchia, General Oudinot, 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 95 

Commander-in-chief of the expedition, held very dif- 
ferent language from what was to be expected of 
him ; that he took more or less the attitude of a re- 
storer of the pontifical power. But the public indig- 
nation kept no further bounds when it was known that 
he had demanded of the Republican Assembly at Rome 
permission to land and select a salubrious position 
near the gates of the city, solemnly promising to re- 
spect the independence of the Roman people ; that 
when he had obtained what he had demanded he 
revealed the true object of his expedition, and un- 
masked his batteries, which did not save him from 
a repulse in the first assault that he made, and from 
being forced to undertake a regular siege. The Na- 
tional Assembly declared that it had been deceived, 
and, in spite of the embarrassed explanations of the 
ministers, voted an order of the day, which implied 
a severe censure of what had been done. Unhappily 
it had but a few moments more to live, and the Leg- 
islative Assembly was won over in advance to the 
Catholic policy. Accordingly, after stormy debates, 
which brought on the marked insurrection of the 13th 
of June, an entire approbation was accorded to the 
policy of the Prince President. Thanks to the rein- 
forcements sent him, General Oudinot took possession 
of Rome despite the heroic defense of Garibaldi, 
and the Holy Father soon returned, supported and 
defended by a full corps of the French array. 

The Prince President hoped that the sacerdotal 
rule would not be restored, with all its abuses, and 
that the Pope would make some concession to the 
French flag, which henceforth sheltered him, and 
which, although faithless to the principles of '89 
from the moment that it floated at Rome, had been 



96 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

too often filled with the breath of freedom to find 
pleasure in protecting a tyrannical theocracy. For 
this purpose he sent his aide-de-camp, M. Edgar JNey, 
to the Holy Father with a very imperious letter, de- 
manding serious reforms in civil affairs, as a gift on 
his second accession. But at Rome they were deafer 
than ever in that ear; they were glad indeed to re- 
ceive French soldiers, but not French advice, and 
they knew very well that the Catholic party disap- 
proved the President's letter. The Pope came back 
from Gaeta a most desperate champion of absolutism, 
like all backslidden Liberals. He restored the old 
Roman machinery on its former footing ; his States 
were again surrounded with the thick net of minute 
precautions, that there might be no contraband com- 
merce in liberal ideas. The priestly yoke rested 
with its full weight on the population, the lay ele- 
ment was more and more excluded from public af- 
fairs. Meantime the coup (Petat of the second of De- 
cember, 1851, had come on in France. Every mouth 
was gagged that might have spoken in favor of the 
freedom of the Romans. The Catholic party, which 
hoped to derive advantage from it, with a few hon- 
orable exceptions, greeted this event with enthusiasm. 
IJ Utiivers, the most violent and influential organ of 
Ultramontanism, lauded the new power, born of per- 
jury and massacre, to the skies, and at Rome the 
astute old men. who wished to keep an entire people 
in squalor chanted the most sincere Te Deum they 
had ever intoned. These are the unhappy divorces 
between religion and morality which do the former 
more harm than all other attacks. Ours is a century 
when things move so fast, and possess such a power 
of transformation, that we should never deem anv 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 97 

situation long compromised. The Eoman authori- 
ties fancied that they had only a slumbering people 
to deal with, and thought they could resume the nice 
mummified life of past centuries, when a new thunder- 
clap came to procure them a most disagreeable awaken- 
ing. It was almost the whole peninsula rising up for 
its independence. Count Cavour had succeeded in 
stirring up the old Italian leaven in the heart of the 
Emperor of the French by presenting political pros- 
pects, of which the baths of Plombieres, where they 
met, guard the secret. The rapid and victorious 
campaign of 1859 freed all Northern Italy, and its 
first whiff swept away the garrison of Bologna. To 
Italy the treaty of Yilla-Franca was a cruel decep- 
tion ; it arrested her at the famous Quadrilateral, sus- 
pending over her the perpetual menace of a return of 
the Austrian army, which, established in its fortresses 
like a bird of prey in its inaccessible eyrie, could 
select at will the propitious moment for an invasion. 
Besides, the combination favored by the Emperor of 
the French was a division which might become a 
confederation of States, wherein Austria, through 
Yenice and Florence, would have a considerable in- 
fluence, and over which the Holy Father should pre- 
side ; he, the greatest enemy of national independ- 
ence. This detestable treaty, though never applied 
for a day, was a stimulus to the genius of Cavour, 
who, moreover, felt himself in harmony with the 
aspirations of his nation. 

What followed is well-known. Florence and Parma 
intimated to their Archdukes an order to remain in the 
Austrian camp, where they had thought good to take 
service. Never was the overthrow of any dynasty 

more legitimate. Garibaldi, at the head of his volun- 

7 



98 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

teers, took possession of Sicily, and triumphed at 
Naples, quite as much by the astute policy of Cavour, 
whose means we are far from approving, as by the hero- 
ism of his red-shirts. At last the whole Pontifical State 
was agitated and shivering under its degrading yoke. 
The people of Ro magna succeeded in their prompt 
revolt. During this period of contemporary history 
the French government pursued an equivocal policy. 
Though mounting guard at the Vatican, it secretly 
favored annexations to the new kingdom of Italy. 
When Oavour decided to strike a great blow after 
the organization of an army of Pontifical volunteers 
nnder the command of General Lamoriciere, it is 
related that General Cialdini, who was to command 
the Italian army, came to pay his respects to the 
Emperor, then in Savoy, and that Napoleon simply 
said to him, Fate presto — Act at once. Cialdini did 
not fail to follow this advice, and it was easy for him 
at Castelfidardo to crush the army of the Pope, quite 
inferior to his own in numbers and organization, 
though its chief was one of the most intrepid gener- 
als and one of the most generous men of France. 
The domain of the Pope was reduced to its present 
boundaries ; outside of Rome it had lost its most 
precious jewels — and it retained the Eternal City 
only by the aid of a French corps of occupation. 
How long would she still retain that ? This was a 
very dubious question after all that had taken place 
within two years. Did not the Emperor cause a 
pamphlet to be written by one of his confidants, which 
hinted that the Holy Father might well be content 
with the Vatican and its dependencies ? Events had, 
moreover, raised the question of the temporal power 
of the Papacy in all the European press, public 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 99 

opinion was agitated and impassioned in various 
directions, and the new kingdom of Italy, which had 
been recognized by France immediately after the 
death of the illustrious Cavour, did not fail on every 
convocation of its Parliament to declare that Rome 
ought to be its capital. Surely the position of' the 
temporal sovereignty of the Holy Father was quite 
grave, despite the very irregular subsidy of Peter's 
pence and the enlistment of many volunteers. It 
became much more so when a convention was ratified 
between France and Italy in September, 1865, 
according to which the Emperor withdrew his troops 
on condition that the King, Victor Emmanuel, should 
prevent incursions on the Pontifical States. The 
French troops were in fact withdrawn ; but two 
years had not elapsed before Garibaldi again attacked 
the Roman State with his bands. This was a solemn 
moment for France; the question was whether the 
Emperor would resume the old error of occupation. 
His hesitation was great ; but, yielding to high and 
dear influences, the Chief of the State, who then 
possessed his personal power in its fullness, ordered 
the fleet to sail from Toulon to Civita Yecchia. The 
Chassepot guns did wonders, according to the happy 
expression of General de Failly, who commanded the 
French troops. The Garibaldians were crushed, the 
Pontifical power consolidated, and M. Rouher de- 
clared at the French tribune, in the memorable debates 
which took place on that occasion, that never would 
France abandon the cause of the Pontifical sov- 
ereignty. For the present, the army of occupa- 
tion is in barracks at Civita Yecchia, and at Viterbo ; 
they are not numerous, but a corporal's guard with 
the French flag would be enough for the occupation 



100 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

to have its full effect. People know that France is 
near. What am I saying ? She is there, with her 
power and prestige, in the least of her soldiers. Fur- 
ther, the Imperial Government has authorized the 
enlistment of a French legion, called at first the 
Legion of Antibes, whose members retain their 
rank and their rights on retirement whenever they 
return to France. The Pope also has in his service 
a Swiss legion and six battalions of Pontifical 
Zouaves, volunteers enlisted among all nations, and 
most ardent Catholics in their opinions. It is a fine 
blossom of legitimist aristocracy. They are as the 
apple of the Holy Father's eye ; he sees in them his 
defenders from conviction, and is never weary of 
showering benedictions on them ; they are encoun- 
tered in large numbers kneeling before holy relics 
in the churches; on certain days they all commune 
together, and they are spoken of as confessors of the 
faith. This does not keep them from leading garri- 
son life at other times, except a few who are perfect 
enthusiasts. The Holy Father has several times 
reviewed them, blessed their cannon, a very singular 
office for the Vicar of the Prince of Peace ; he is 
nearer his true office when he blesses the lambs on 
Saint Agnes's day. Such is the military position of 
the Roman States — whose most characteristic feature 
still is the French occupation. The Swiss and the 
Zouaves cannot pass for national troops. It is, 
then, incontestable that the Holy Father needs for- 
eign bayonets to guard him against his own subjects. 
We shall see in the next letter that this comes from 
the intolerable tyranny of his government. But is it 
not itself a grave thing to see the representative of 
the Catholic religion reduced to employ means before 



Some, Italy, axd the Council. 101 

which the worst lay despots would recoil? He is 
the only present representative of those petty Italian 
tyrants of the Middle Ages who could reign only by 
turning the point of a foreign sword against the 
breast of the nation on which they imposed them- 
selves. I know that it will be said that the Pope 
has to deal not merely w 7 ith his own subjects, but 
also with the intrigues and conspirators of Italy. But 
after all, the Romans too are Italians, and for them 
you will never be able to identify their great common 
country with a foreign power. Between the Floren- 
tine and the Sw T iss, though arrayed as a halberdier, 
he knows well which is his true compatriot. It is 
likewise certain that all the gallant, energetic, and 
youthful portion of the population is in exile ; it is 
these who wish to re-enter their homes occupied by 
men who do not speak their language nor love the 
grandeur of their country. Does not all Italy know 
that Rome is a focus of conspiracy against her, that 
there she is profoundly hated, and that the Holy 
Father desires nothing so much as her abasement 
and division ? Yet justice compels us to blame her 
policy so far as it has been tortuous and violent ; 
let her renounce these means, w 7 hich are chiefly peril- 
ous to those who use them, and just leave the breath 
of freedom to blow over the nations! Let her also 
have full confidence in the infallible imprudence of 
her adversary ! One Encyclical like that of 1865 is 
worth ten Graribaldian expeditions to her. 

The great argument of the Ultramontane Catholics 
to justify foreign occupation at Rome is, that the 
Eternal City belongs not to herself but is the sanc- 
tuary of true Christendom. If walls, temples, and a 
city of stone were meant, such an argument might 



102 Home, Italy, and the Council. 

be understood ; but this city is inhabited ; it is a city, 
and not merely a sacred hostelry. Now by what 
right, under pretext of serving your faith, do you 
trample under foot the liberty of human beings with 
the same moral destiny as yourselves? What! your 
religion need idiots and slaves ! What ! you need a 
eunuch people to guard your great sanctuary, as if it 
were a Mohammedan seraglio! What! human vic- 
tims needed for your Papal idol! Then you do not 
know that the whole world is not worth one man, and 
for the good of religion you inflexibly load your breth- 
ren with chains which you would not wear a single 
day ! But what then is your religion? Ah ! if you 
think to serve it by such an administration, come then 
into the popular assemblies now held at Paris, in the 
capital of the Empire which you w^ould make soldier 
to the Pope. Listen to those terrible outbursts of 
hatred against God. They come from the fact, that 
a people which has always been assured that Catholi- 
cism and Christianity are one and the same thing 
sees God only athwart your Pope-King and athwart 
the blood of Mentana. You are venturing the spir- 
itual power of religion on the miserable stake of the 
temporal power. 

Whether it please the Ultramontane party or not, 
their excesses have poured the most vivid light upon 
the question of the relations of these two powers. 
The French occupation of Pome has done more to 
advance the cause of the independence of the Church 
than the most eloquent books. To-day the w^hole 
liberal party is won over to it. And the liberal 
party is the France of to-morrow. When they come 
to power the Roman soil will not retain one of our 
soldiers, for the occupation of the Pontifical States 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 103 

does not merely wound the rights of the subjects of 
the Pope, but also the rights of Frenchmen. Accord- 
ing to her Constitution, France is not a Catholic 
State ; all religions are to be alike protected by law. 
By defending the Holy Father, the government ceases 
to be lay ; it devotes itself to the service of a special 
Church, and forces us, who do not belong to her, to 
sustain her. This is a defiance of justice that can- 
not be continued. Its approaching limit is also fore- 
seen. This is perceived, too, at Rome. Therefore 
their haste to hold the Council. France will be its 
halberdier — but patience! That will fill up the 
measure and the cup will overflow ! A notable frac- 
tion of Catholicism begins to long as ardently as we 
for the fall of the temporal power. They are indeed 
right, for the Catholics ought to be the most impa- 
tient to see the end of a state of things which is truly 
the dishonor of their religion. 

E. de Pressense. 



104 .Rome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTER Y. 

Cause of the Uneasiness of the Romans — Modern Liberty and Theoc- 
racy — The Prince and the Pope — Pope elected by Ecclesiastics — ■ 
The Sacred College — The Conclave — The Congregations — The 
Courts of Law — The Signature — Consulta Sacra and the Kobe — 
Trials not Public — Special Rights of the Clergy— The Police — Im- 
punity of Crime — Conspirators — The Prelacy — Clerical Establish- 
ments of Rome — Foundations, Masses, and Begging — The Press 
and the Censorship — Enforced Hypocrisy of the Romans — No Re- 
form possible — Ignorance of the Masses — Higher Education — The 
Jesuits as Educators — Their Triumphs over History — A Roman 
Apologue — Singular Consequences of Theocracy — Approval of The- 
aters and Lotteries — A Suggestive Incident. 

Rome, November, 1869. 

Dear Sir, — Should it be asked, Whence comes the 
immense dissatisfaction of the Roman population 
with its government? the reply is only too easy. We 
need onlv remember the nature of that government. 
Surely there is none more detestable in the world. 
It combines every thing that can exasperate a nation 
which has drawn a few breaths of modern liberty. 
To tell all in a word, it is Absolute Theocracy pushed 
to its final consequences. Let us try to present a 
rapid picture of it, to show what Catholicism, left to 
herself and without any counterpoise, does with hu- 
manity when she can dominate it at will. This question 
is important in relation to the religious controversy; 
indeed, as I have already said, liberal Catholics, who 
are singularly annoyed by the Pontifical Encyclicals, 
strive to lessen their sweep by a strained exegesis. 
But all their commentaries are annulled by that 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 105 

which we have under our eyes at Rome : the Pon- 
tifical rule is the Syllabus turned government, and 
incarnated after a sort in an administration which is 
daily applied. All the fine phrases that can be made 
on the harmony of freedom with Catholicism, dash 
and break on a reality which cannot be denied. Be 
fore leaving his diocese to come and sit in the 
Council, Monseigneur Dupanloup pronounced a very 
eloquent discourse on taking leave of his priests. He 
indignantly protested against the impious wretches 
who fear that the Council may pronounce a divorce 
between modern society and the Church. On this 
head he repeated his famous explanatory pamphlet 
on the Syllabus, and affirmed that the Church could 
not hate and condemn that society of which she is 
the mother. These grand words mean nothing — it 
is not enough to talk vaguely about the conciliation 
of the Papacy and modern society ; they must be 
brought face to face. We are about to tell, or rather, 
remind, Monseigneur the Bishop of Orleans what he 
will find at Rome. He knows the principles on 
which modern society reposes : he shall see whether 
there is one of them that is not resolutely trodden 
under foot in the Eternal City, and systematically 
denied. I imagine what the bishops from your free 
America would feel on this despotic soil should they 
for a moment lift the vail of unreflecting respect 
which will cover their eyes — should they forsake the 
wholly perfumed and obscured atmosphere of incense 
which will envelope them, coolly to consider things. 
I imagine that they would be in haste to return to 
their great and noble country, and that they would 
say to themselves that the most detestable wish which 
the deadliest foe of the United States could utter, 



106 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

would be, that they might exchange their government 
for that which prevails in the Holy City. 

If there is an elementary principle in modern so- 
ciety it is that of popular sovereignty ; that the gov- 
ernment, whose form may vary, should represent the 
will and interests of the country, and not represent 
itself, nor serve its own grandeur. That is, indeed, 
royalty in the modern sense, nay, I will say in the 
Christian sense, for this great idea comes directly 
from the Gospel. What becomes of this principle 
before a power which affirms that it is descended di- 
rectly from heaven, not by some mysterious species 
of divine right, which loses itself in the night of time, 
but by the direct designation of the Holy Spirit, so 
that it represents not its own people, but God him- 
self, and may claim an obedience as implicit as the 
Jehovah of the Old Covenant demanded of the 
twelve tribes of Israel ! This power can neither be 
shared nor limited. It is vain to reserve infallibility 
to questions of doctrine. It is not possible that he 
who thinks himself the mouth of God to interpret 
religion should not deem himself illuminated with 
celestial light to guide public affairs, all the more 
because these are constantly blended with religion — 
because civil and ecclesiastical affairs form an inex- 
tricable network. The Pope needs to be an absolute 
king to preserve his independence, unless he would 
be no king at all, and move exclusively in the spirit- 
ual sphere. But if he has any temporal sovereignty 
it ought certainly to be wielded free from control. 
We cannot imagine a Pope obliged to yield to the 
vote of a deliberative assembly when a treaty with 
any given power should be in question, for all the 
treaties which he contracts have a religious side, and 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 107 

are concordats ; consequently they affect ecclesiasti- 
cal interests. The Priest could not be constrained by 
the Prince, therefore the Prince should never know 
bonds. Please note that what the Papacy does at 
Rome it would wish to do every-where ; that it has' 
not abandoned the pretensions of Gregory YII. and 
Innocent III. ; that it is still ready to affirm that the 
temporal power in all places is in respect to the spir- 
itual power as the earth in respect to the sun ; that 
in any case the Church should be mistress. There 
is something more than a fact in the Pontifical ab- 
solutism, there is a principle, a dogma ; the unhappy 
nations w T ho undergo it have not even the hope of 
any improvement for consolation. They will move 
eternally in the circle of their present institutions, a 
circle which cannot become more supple, but must 
either be broken or drawn ever tighter. The pallia- 
tives that have repeatedly been devised could never 
be applied ; the Council of State had not even the 
right to regulate expenses. It could only attest them 
and submit. It is a hundred times better, too, that 
this shadow of parliamentarianism should disappear, 
and that no oil should be poured on the wheels of 
absolutism ; it is desirable that the horrible gearing 
should play in all its harshness. There have been, 
furthermore, intelligent despotisms, at least in the 
measure in which they are possible. These offered 
the people a bargain, and in exchange for their free- 
dom favored their material prosperity and their na- 
tional grandeur. Under Frederick II. Prussia was 
doubtless subjected to an iron yoke, but she found 
consolation in the feeling that she was being con- 
ducted to glorious destinies. Understand me well. 
I do not say this to excuse despotism ; it is always 



108 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

immoral and mischievous. I simply remark that, 
though it can never be excused, it sometimes offers 
compensations. But nothing of the kind is possible 
in the Roman Theocracy. The Holy Father has no 
right to lay to heart the interests of the country. 
He governs his principality only with reference to 
the Church universal. To him Rome is merely a 
vast episcopal throne. He is not an Italian sover- 
eign, but the chief of Christendom. The Roman 
people is likewise assured that never will their Prince 
assume the stand-point of their interests in forming 
alliances. He offers them as a sacrifice to the cause 
he personifies. The sacrifice would be touching did 
he offer himself \ but the expense of the burnt-offering 
is borne by his people. As for him, he hovers in the 
empyrean, and sniffs the incense of Christendom. 
The troops he pays will never serve except as a guard 
to his personal authority ; they will not weigh an 
ounce in the political balance, and the Roman people 
will have the pleasure of thinking that they are 
treated like old men and women in general politics, 
and that the haughty speech which might reveal man- 
hood is never expected of them. Thus they are kept 
in constant humiliation. 

Should it be claimed that the elective character 
of the Papacy is an amelioration, that would be a 
great mistake. 

Pirst, the Holy Father is elected solely by an ec- 
clesiastical body, without any communication with 
the people. Then the fleeting nature of his govern- 
ment prevents his having extensive aims. A family 
which becomes a dynasty is more associated with the 
country and its interests than an old bachelor, who, 
when he has loaded his nephews with favors, (which 



Bome, Italy, and the Council. 109 

the present Pope has never done,) has nothing more 
to wish for himself. His name stirs no memory ; he 
has nothing in the past to care for, nothing to pro- 
vide for in the future, in which he has no concern. 
His government also is the most barren imaginable 
in public affairs. The Cardinals constitute the Coun- 
cil of the Papacy, a Council which it names, and 
which can never influence its decisions. They are 
divided into three orders : the order of Bishops, the 
order of Priests, and the order of Deacons. Together 
they make up the Sacred College, which is trans- 
formed into a Conclave when a new Holy Father is 
to be chosen. They guide all civil and ecclesiasti- 
cal affairs, and are divided into Congregations. The 
chief are those of the Inquisition, the Propaganda, 
Bites, the Council, and the Index. The Apostolical 
Chancery is the depository of the Papal bulls ; the 
Datary is charged with the dispatch of benefices, 
indulgences, and dispensations. The Penitentiary 
sends off absolutions. The influence of the Cardinals 
and the clergy is not less in civil than in religious 
affairs. Do not forget further that you must never 
separate the former from the latter in a theocratic 
constitution. The religious life of the inhabitant of 
Borne belongs, as much as his civil life, to the power 
on which he depends. He is responsible, then, in a 
multitude of cases, to the Congregations that I have 
just enumerated, to which he must account for any 
failure in the duties of piety. The Congregation of 
the Inquisition is doubtless rather a phantom of the 
past than a very redoubtable power ; the history of 
blood and tears written on the walls of its dungeons 
has had no new chapters in late years, because it is ad- 
venturous to be old Papal Borne. The pressure of the 



110 Rome Italy and the Council. 

circumambient air is nevertheless felt, and the courage 
fails to turn wish into deed. Yet be not too confi- 
dent. I am well assured that should any movement 
of evangelical propagaudism be taken in the act of 
distributing the Scriptures the Inquisition would be 
found again, not indeed to slay, (her teeth are bro- 
ken,) but to imprison. She is still called to busy 
herself with a multitude of cases of conscience. 

This leads us to the organization of Justice at 
Rome. It is in this domain that especially all the 
principles of modern society are set at naught. First 
of all, the preponderance here belongs still to the 
clergy. How could it be otherwise? Is it not a 
moral institution, the father of the people ? To in- 
trust to laymen the care of discerning evil, charac- 
terizing and punishing it, would not that be the 
pitch of abominations, the overthrow of all rules I 
Hence care has been taken to exclude them as much 
as possible. The principal courts at Rome are in 
reality only ecclesiastical tribunals. They are the tri- 
bunal of Signature, a species of superior court charged 
to interpret the laws ; the Consulta Sacra, w T hich has 
an appellate jurisdiction in criminal causes; the Tri- 
bunal of the Robe, which is the Supreme Court of the 
Roman State. Judicial trials are not public; they 
are conducted in the shade; no appeal to the public 
is possible. The law may be strangled between two 
doors by the dumb officers of the Roman authorities. 
It is easy to conceive what arbitrary measures such 
an administration must produce. Proceedings by 
documents are substituted for the voice of defense, 
which, moreover, would be lost in the void without 
arousing an echo. The clergy finds its advantage in 
such institutions. All its misdoings are buried ; it 



Some, Italy, and the Council. Ill 



has immunities which are infinitely precious to its 
members in exemption from the common law ; the 
jurisdictions under which it is are very careful to 
keep its peccadilloes concealed. Thus ecclesiastical 
charity covers a multitude of sins. The regular 
clergy is exposed, not to more scandal but to greater 
perils. Every convent has its own jurisdiction, its 
in pace secret prisons. God knows how many tears 
they have drank up, how many unfortunates have 
there been punished, perchance for good impulses ! 

Besides, in a despotic State justice has but very 
slight action compared with that of the police. The 
latter spreads its protecting wings every-where, keep- 
ing its Argus-eye ever open, even in the most secret 
confessional. Yet it does not use brutal means. It 
walks with measured steps, disguising its movements. 
It is a gentle and discreet person, who has been at 
the seminary of Gesu, who has learned his best tricks 
of the good fathers. It has borrowed of them the 
paternal smile, the honeyed voice, the patience that 
can watch for hours, and then, when the hour for 
action comes, can unite rapidity with mystery, and 
the blow has fallen before the hand has even been 
seen which inflicts it. No guarantee can arrest it ; 
personal liberty is a concession and not a right ; jus- 
tice is not bound to act after limited delays ; it may 
easily leave the prisoner to rot in an unknown dun- 
geon. Relatives make some outcries, but they are 
bound in so many ways that silence is quickly im- 
posed on them. An order of exile is expedited with- 
out any notification, and no demurrer can get it re- 
voked. The other day the " Rome Journal," speak- 
ing of the indignation caused in the Eternal City by 
the brief appearance of an Italian Representative, 



112 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

well known for his liberal opinions, rejoiced that the 
Pontifical police would know to prevent the recur- 
rence of such scandals, and that in its underground 
ways it would succeed in removing from the Holy 
City every element of mischievous propagandism. 
The Roman police naturally has so much to do in 
watching over the Liberals that it is often very lenient 
to ordinary offenses, especially when the criminal has 
potent friends. One day an unlucky brigand had 
been caught plunging his dagger into the breast of a 
Frenchman in a fit of jealousy. He thought to get 
out of the affair because he had great friends who 
could well cover up his peccadillo. But for once he 
had reckoned without his host, who was this time 
the French police, because his offense must be an- 
swered before the military authorities of France. 
He complained bitterly of his misfortune to him who 
told me the story. " Our Roman police," said he, 
" they understand, they understand ;" meaning, that 
with good recommendations you can always escape 
them. M. Ampere, the celebrated writer, who knew 
Rome better than any body else, used to tell the fol- 
lowing story. One day he encountered a good old 
man, with the placid and honest air of a patriarch. 
He asked him what his calling was, not doubting 
that he had filled the most honorable offices. " I, 
sir," returned the good man, u I was formerly a brig- 
and." " What ! a brigand with your excellent fig- 
ure?" " O, sir, you talk like my father! At the 
moment of my decision lie said, ' Why turn brigand? 
Become a prelate rather. You will steal in the of- 
fice.' But I loved glory." Thus may retired brig- 
ands peacefully consume their savings at Rome, while 
the most honest man, if suspected of liberal meas- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 113 

tires, is flung into prison or exile, without judgment 
or debate, on a mere suspicion. 

And yet this skillful police cannot find the true 
nest of the Roman conspiracies. There exists a Na- 
tional Committee at Rome which urges on by all 
possible means deliverance from the Papal yoke. It 
is known that it sits permanently; that its communi- 
cations with the Garibaldians are numerous ; and 
that it waits patiently to attain its ends. Well now, 
they never have succeeded in getting hold of the 
principal members. They are perhaps in some 
branch of the administration, or in the antechambers 
of some Cardinal, bowing, as need is — perhaps they 
swing the censer. On great occasions their presence 
and activity is disclosed. Some fine morning the 
walls of Rome are suddenly all covered with procla- 
mations, which give the general watchword. The 
entire prelacy is furious, but their wrath must exhale 
in vain imprecations ; the offenders are invisible. 
They may be close by, all steeped in devotion; but 
their punishment is impossible. 

The Italians excel in these underground maneu- 
vers. They are the best conspirators in the world ; 
prudent, discreet, skillful in misleading, and in put- 
ting the bloodhounds of the police on the wrong 
track. As I have spoken of the Prelacy, I must ex- 
plain this singular institution. It constitutes a spe- 
cies of aristocracy with no very well-defined func- 
tions, but from which are drawn all the dignitaries 
of the Church, and part of those of the State, which 
is never separated from the former. This body fur- 
nishes the Pope his high domestics, and occupies the 
most important functions in the ministry. It may 
be known by its violet stockings. The number of 

8 



114 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

the prelates is considerable. The clergy, moreover, 
in the proportions to which it has multiplied, is a 
perpetual cloud of grasshoppers, busy in consuming 
this country. Rome numbers three hundred and 
eighty-nine churches, several of them important ba- 
silicas ; each has a numerous train of servitors to 
maintain ; some have canons magnificently paid. 
Add to these the College of Cardinals, each of whom 
receives yearly six thousand dollars, a multitude of 
Bishops in partibus — immense seminaries and con- 
vents of all orders, w-hich would of themselves con- 
stitute a great city. Tou cannot take a step in the 
street without crossing files of monks of every name, 
Franciscans, Dominicans, and Carmelites, with all 
their divisions and subdivisions. No doubt the 
money that supports this numberless clerical body 
comes from ancient endowments, but it is none the 
less drawn from the country which it exhausts. 
Mirabeau said justly, when the difficult question of 
the estates of the clergy was in discussion at the tri- 
bunal of the Constituent Assembly in 1789, that the 
State must always have a right of resumption upon 
these estates of corporations on condition of gener- 
ously indemnifying the actual generation still in 
possession. He said, " The dead, if their right were 
absolute, might occupy the entire soil of any country 
with their tombs, so that not an inch of land would 
remain for the living to cultivate and subsist upon." 
Well now, this argument, which at first seems a para- 
dox corresponding to no reality, has its full value on 
this Roman soil overloaded with those pompous en- 
dowments, by which so many of the rich, anxious 
about their eternal future, have sought to purchase 
the pardon of Heaven by paying for it in cash to 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 115 

those in whose hands they saw the celestial keys. 
Rome, as has been well said, is the great mortmain 
proprietor of the Occident. But if the endowments 
are insufficient, the mass-market works in the most 
fruitful manner. It has been greatly perfected in 
the last few years ; it is a true branch of trade. 
There is now a free exchange of masses with the 
various Catholic countries ; they are exported with 
benefices. Thus a given Church has considerable 
orders for masses, which it cannot meet all alone; it 
arranges the task with some less favored Church, 
which performs them at a cheaper rate, and the for- 
mer Church gains the difference. This custom is not 
peculiar to the Roman States ; it is very general, and 
has given occasion to some passably scandalous law- 
suits. I believe that, through the telegraph, the 
mass-market will yet be found beside the stock- 
market. 

Mendicant monks like the Franciscans are another 
sad sore for this unlucky population. Their rule 
obliges them to live on alms ; at Rome these alms 
are a regular tribute levied on the poorest houses. 
The Capuchin friar knows all the arts of his trade ; 
he approaches his patient with a benign air, offers 
him a pinch of snuff, speaks his dialect with great 
facility, for he is from the common people, like his 
victim, and then he reaches out his bag or wallet, 
and the wretch must acquit himself, unless his 
poverty be past doubt ; otherwise he would be ill- 
liked, and the Church has long arms. The blood- 
sucker returns to his convent quite gorged. Beggary 
has its third estate at Rome, which is largely repre- 
sented; it is recognized and patented ; every mendi- 
cant wears a medal from the government and goes 



116 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

with a nasal whine to church doors, as though he ful- 
filled some State function. Naturally he has to make 
a great display of devotion to succeed in his business. 
I am persuaded that more than one capitalist lifts 
with one hand the tapestried door of a large church, 
often while his other hand is often extended to you. 

The Pontifical Government can be under no illu- 
sion on the discontent that is brewing in the hearts 
of its subjects. It knows that a single spark would 
fire the powder. It also takes the most jealous care 
to remove every thing which might awaken the least 
liberal aspiration. What the press is, under such 
rule, may be imagined. It is purely and simply the 
organ of the government. That alone speaks and 
writes. Never can the slightest abuse be named, 
never the least objection be uttered. Foreign news 
is dressed up in Roman style before it circulates ; the 
telegraph, that free child of the air, is under the 
most minute watch. But one strain is heard in all 
the Roman journals, a perpetual halleluiah to the won- 
derful and heavenly rule which they enjoy, and a 
constant anathema against revolution and its abomi- 
nations, especially against the new kingdom of Italy. 
Dull sarcasms rain upon that like hail. Geography 
itself must lie for the benefit of the Holy See. None 
of the new titular styles is accepted. The King of 
Italy is still the King of Piedmont ; the province of 
Naples is never mentioned except as the Kingdom 
of the two Sicilies. On the government of the press 
let us listen to the Some Correspondent — a very 
well-meaning journal. I find the following passage 
in its issue of November sixth : " No, the Papacy is 
not an extinguisher. It favors social activity while 
restraining it within those limits which befit the wel- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 117 

fare of the people, morality and justice. As to literary 
activity, Rome numbers thirty-four newspapers, in 
which, thanks to the watchfulness of the authorities, 
none can offend either morality or reason, or the 
authority which represents them." What could be 
more ingenuous ? Reason and morality are incarnated 
in the government ; whatever is opposed to that is 
immoral and irrational. There is nothing to do but 
to receive and repeat its teachings. These thirty 
journals are merely its speaking-trumpets. Do you 
not admire the number thirty-four? Is it not an 
answer to all objections? What! our press not suffi- 
cient? and we have thirty-four journals; count 
well, not one is lacking. Well! had you two hun- 
dred they would none the less be one and the 
same journal — yours. Be there two hundred or ten 
parrots in a cage, it is ever the same babble. The 
censorship, which is always preventive, does not bear 
merely on the newspapers, but on all publications. 
Every book is subject to it, whatever topics it may 
treat. It is certain that no scientific discovery would 
be allowed to pass which should bear hard at any 
point on Romish orthodoxy. Its famous blunder 
with Galileo has taught it nothing; it has found 
means to reconcile his discoveries with its dogmas, 
and it permits Father Sacchi, the illustrious astrono- 
mer, to have a magnificent observatory in the College 
at Rome, and even to borrow some of his discoveries 
from foreign profane science ; but it would not grant 
an exeat to a compromising discovery, however well- 
founded it might be on irrefragable documents. It 
is well known how carefully the door of the Vatican 
Library is closed ; it possesses treasures on the history 
of the later Middle Ages and on the struggles of the 



118 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Reformation. Bat so long as the present rule 
endures, history will never get its eyes upon them. 
Night must be created in the past as well as in the 
present, that the Pontifical Star may blaze alone in 
all its splendor. The sun is its great enemy; the 
Reformation showed this well by inscribing on its 
standard the device, Post tenehras lux. 

The censorship pursues irreligion or heterodoxy in 
the humblest publications, and even in the opera 
libretti. Every literary work must bend to the 
proportions of its Procrustean bed or undergo the 
outrage of its scissors. The word liberty is every- 
where excluded as incendiary. It is not allowable 
to put into an opera any term that nearly or remotely 
appertains to the ecclesiastical tongue. Thus, to cite 
a recent example of the scruples of the censorship, in 
a certain piece there was mention of the angelic beauty 
of some heroine. The censor found nothing more 
urgent to do than to put in the room of those words 
the admirable beauty. But the Pope thought this 
was too much, and he hinted his feeling with witty 
neatness when, passing in a carriage along the street 
of the Holy Angels, he inquired its name, as if he 
had forgotten it. and chided his informant by saying, 
" You are mistaken, it is not the street of the Angeli; 
it is the street of the Mirabili" But above all there 
is one book which is carefully banished from Rome, 
and whose circulation is guarded against as though 
it were poison — the Bible. You may ship a cargo 
of romances, French or English, to Rome, except 
those of political tendencies ; but apart from your 
pocket Bible, you cannot openly introduce a copy of 
the sacred volume. The great Bible Societies, which 
are the honor of Protestantism, occupy the chief 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 119 

place in the anathemas of the late Encyclicals; they 
are denounced as Satanic enterprises.* Indeed, we 
might say to the Papacy, " If you are God, the Bible 
comes from the devil, since whatever yon do, and, 
further, all that you mean to do, is blamed and 
branded by that book. I seem to see the God of 
the Gospel entering your proud basilica with the 
scourge of small cords, which drove the buyers from 
the temple, and the fearful anathemas which turned 
the Pharisees of Jerusalem pale. You do well, from 
your point of view, to banish the word of God to 
your frontiers. You are right in fearing it — it will 
slay you ! " I have not yet said a word about the 
holiest liberty — liberty of conscience — because it 
would be ridiculous to speak of it at Rome, where 
every thing is organized against it ; it is the great 
stumbling-stone. I have already cited the terms in 
which the Encyclical of Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. 
characterize it. 

In all the Concordats signed by the present Pope 
it is expressly interdicted; we need only remem- 
ber the famous Concordat of Vienna, in which, after 
Sadowa, Austria rightly recognized the cause of her 
defeat ; that rule was after the heart of Rome, since 
it subordinated the education, literature, thought, 
and will of the country to the good pleasure of its 
clergy. The Concordats, proposed to the republics 
of South America, are conceived from the same stand- 
point. It is there that we must seek the true Romish 
idea, and not in liberal countries where, in order to 
obtain something, she is obliged to make important 

* I believe a copy of the Gospels, with Catholic comments, may 
be had at bookstores. But this has nothing to do with the free cir- 
culation of the Holy Books. 



120 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

concessions, but without ever touching her great 
principle, that the only freedom pleasing to God is 
that of the Church, a freedom that consists in her 
oppressing souls at will. But it is at home, in Rome, 
that this fine system must be seen at work; there 
the word of God cannot resound except in little 
chapels of embassadors, which are yet covered by 
some foreign flag. The least attempt at private re- 
ligions propagandism would surely lead to imprison- 
ment or exile. They celebrate with great pomp the 
abjuration of blind Protestants, who are caught in the 
snare of a wholly exterior worship ; yet the abjura- 
tion of a Catholic would be not only forbidden, but 
severely chastised ; thus what the Sultan allows is 
here forbidden, and Romish fanaticism exceeds Mus- 
sulman fanaticism. What could you have more 
abominable than the carrying off of little Mortara on 
the pretext that his nurse had him baptized on the 
sly? That enormous scandal is forgotten, and yet 
it continues, for Mortara is now a priest, forever 
separated from the family from which he was stolen. 
Whenever we enter the Sistine Chapel to admire 
the frescoes of Michael Angelo, do we not see, on the 
walls of the passage which the Holy Father traverses 
to reach his private chapel, the frescoes of Yasari, 
which represent the triumph of the Church on St. 
Bartholomew's eve ? The memory of that execrable 
massacre is thus religiously preserved, not on account 
of the merit of the work, which in itself is only me- 
diocre, but for its own sake, and to attest forever in 
what sense the saying is true, that the Church shrinks 
from blood."* What a cry of indignation would arise 
in France should she consecrate at Versailles a great 



* Abhorret a sanguine. 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 121 

picture in admiration of the massacres of September ! 
What is the difference ? 

I have not yet mentioned the most frightful con- 
sequence of the rule I am describing ; the hypocrisy 
to which it, perforce, condemns a good share of the 
population. Every Roman is obliged by law to fulfill 
his religious duties, and after- the great festivals to 
produce a ticket of confession, else he can exercise no 
trade, or he is subject to various penalties. His moral 
dispositions are of little account ; he must at any rate 
commune. In such a state of things the confessor 
must necessarily be very tolerant — there are well- 
known means of procuring these confessional billets 
on easy terms. If there be a sacrilege committed 
under heaven, it is surely that which is renewed at 
Rome on all the great festivals — a sacrilege ordained 
by him who proclaims himself the Head of the Church. 
You remember those terrible anathemas with which 
the book of the Prophet Isaiah opens against the 
formalist worship of degenerate Judaism, bowing 
down like a reed in solemn festival davs, while the 
heart retained its indomitable pride ; against that 
theatrical worship which covered up injustice and 
violence. " I cannot endure your solemn feasts," cried 
Jehovah; "they are an abomination unto me. Who 
hath required you to present yourselves before my 
face ? " Well, the Romans might justly answer, " He 
who has not only required, but exacted this of us, is 
the Pontiff who claims to be your Yicar and Represent- 
ative. It is he who has appointed these solemn feasts, 
whither w T e are constrained to come by the urgency 
of his soldiers ; and if we bow our heads over the 
pavement of the basilicas with souls full of pride and 
selfishness, it is because the halberd of the guards 



122 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of the Holy Father constrains ns. Therefore we 
come, as we think, to eat and drink the flesh of your 
Christ without one of the feelings required by that 
august sacrament. Our solemn feasts are to many 
among us public falsehoods decreed by the law of the 
State." Can we imagine what demoralization such a 
government must produce, and what becomes of con- 
science in such a school ! It either produces the most 
resolute impiety, most contemptuous toward a re- 
ligion so travestied, or, indeed, it impresses an incur- 
able duplicity on the soul. Where the essential 
relation of life is thus falsified, the entire being 
receives a bent to falsehood that can no longer be 
remedied. And yet people will be astonished, and 
perhaps indignant, that nations molded by Papal 
Catholicism should have some difficulty in getting 
clear of it, and should retain its traces even after 
their chains have fallen off. The greatest curse of 
this sacerdotal absolutism is, that even when revolu- 
tion has overturned it for a time, it renders freedom 
almost impossible. There are evils so inveterate that 
they even infect the means intended to heal them. 

There is no hope of seeing the Roman people ele- 
vated so long as it shall be dependent on the Holy 
Father. No reform, small or great, is possible. Car- 
dinal Consalvi, in those curious memoirs of which 
I have spoken, relates that while he occupied in his 
youth an important position under the government 
he sought to banish certain abuses, but that he stirred 
up so much wrath on the part of those who lived on 
them that he was obliged to yield. This old tale is 
ever new in the Roman States. What hinders any 
serious improvement in their moral condition is the 
fact that the great agent of progress, public educa- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 123 



tion. is in a deplorable state. In reality, the Papacy 
dreads to educate the people ; it has every thing to 
lose from putting them in a position to understand 
history and the real state of things. It would not be 
content to say with the Apostle, that Satan can some- 
times transform himself into an angel of light; it would 
openly declare that the light is a demon. It imagines 
that what ruined humanity in Eden was not its re- 
bellion, but knowledge ; and it takes good care that 
the accursed tree shall not extend its boughs over the 
population which it governs. That tree would, in- 
deed, find a soil hardly propitious for its growth and 
nourishment in these unwholesome lands of the Ro- 
man Campagna, which are of themselves the proof 
and the result of gross ignorance. The rustics of the 
environs are half savage ; only on the confines of 
your great forests, among the fragments of the Indian 
tribes, would you find a race so devoid of culture, 
despite something unspeakably sad and proud that 
appears through their tatters. There is a certain 
number of infant schools at Rome, but the children 
are taken to them in their cradles ; they are rather 
cribs and asylums than educational establishments, 
and what is almost solely learned there is to spell out 
the Catechism. 

A large part of the urban population cannot yet 
read. Good heed is taken not to shake off its igno- 
rance. Here a book is a foe ; and they do not forget 
what asylums printing-houses afforded the Reforma- 
tion in the sixteenth century. All that concerns 
education appertains to the clergy ; with the Papacy 
this is an absolute principle, which it from time to 
time recalls in a doleful voice to the memory of 
emancipated nations. To her mind, the Church is 



124 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

the intellectual mother and nurse of the rising gen- 
erations ; she must harden them into her image and 
fashion their minds in a sacred mold. The Bishop 
of Orleans, Monseigneur Dupanloup, in a quite piti- 
ful warfare which he conducted in France against 
the freedom of lay education, said that at least the 
women ought always to be reared on the knees of the 
Church. Here all the youth receive from her what- 
ever light they have. There is indeed a University 
for the sciences and for law, but under control of the 
clerical extinguisher. Secondary education is given in 
convents to young ladies ; to young men in the great 
ecclesiastical establishments in which Eome glories. 
Apart from the Propaganda College, where young 
men from all nations are admitted, and where nearly 
all languages are spoken, and a few special Colleges, 
like the Irish, the most considerable educational in- 
stitution is the Roman College. It has a magnificent 
edifice, perfectly adapted to its purpose, where it may 
conduct its instructions from the rudiments of Latin 
up to transcendental theology. It is wholly in the 
hands of the Jesuits. They have ever been Yery 
skillful, insinuating, and gracious masters, with a 
certain easy and agreeable bloom of literature, yet 
without ever developing a love for true beauty ; they 
dote on trifles of form ; the art which they like, as 
we may be convinced from their churches, is a pretty 
art ; they every- where prefer the pretty to the beau- 
tiful, because sovereign beauty is a summit where 
we breathe free air. Any generous admiration gives 
the soul an upward impulse which is not without its 
dangers. But the Jesuits obtain their greatest tri- 
umphs in historical studies, or rather over history, 
for they have infinite art in getting clear of testimony 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 125 

that would embarrass their cause. To-day they no 
longer dare to push their audacious falsifications so 
far as they did in the period of political and religious 
reaction that followed the fall of Napoleon. It was 
then that the Manual of the illustrious Father Lori- 
quet appeared, which quite tranquilly suppressed the 
French Revolution, and dated the reign of Louis 
XVIII. from the death of Louis XVII. ; making the 
Victor of Marengo, and Austerlitz a Lieutenant Gen- 
eral in the service of the Most Christian King. The 
courageous Jesuit thought it just and proper to give 
Providence a lesson since it had failed in all its duties 
by allowing the eldest Son of the Church to be kept 
in exile by an adventurer. I almost prefer these cyn- 
ical falsifications, so promptly desired for youth, to 
the artful falsification of history now made by the rev- 
erend Jesuits ; the lying is not less, but it is more skill- 
ful, more difficult to perceive and refute ; it is ever a 
perversion of history, which only glorifies the past 
and curses the future. The procedures of the Jesuits 
remind me of certain Gnostic sects of the second cen- 
tury, who hardily took sides with the Prince of dark- 
ness. Their adherents were called Ophites, or the 
Serpent's men, because they took pleasure in glorify- 
ing Satan ; their saints were precisely all the enemies 
of the true light, from Cain to Judas Iscariot ; they 
carried it through to the very end. Well ! the Jesu- 
its, though they stop short of this, do something like 
it. In history they are always and every-where for 
darkness against light; they are for the oppressors 
against their victims ; their great men are Philip II., 
the demon of the South ; Louis XIV., he who revoked 
the Edict of Nantes, and not he who resisted the 
Pope; Sixtus Quintus; Saint Pius V. ; the Inquisi- 



126 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

tion; while all who have labored for the emancipa- 
tion of mankind are criminals. The theology of the 
Roman College is famous ; it is taught by the most 
distinguished masters ; at their feet the purest and 
most absolute Romish orthodoxy is learned. I con- 
versed one day with one of my countrymen, an in- 
telligent young priest, trained in this school. He 
unrolled to me in the easiest fashion frightful theories 
of religious tyranny founded on the principle that it 
is the right and the duty of the Infallible Church to 
save souls despite themselves. He also told me 
that the great target of the polemics of the Reverend 
Fathers was not unbelief, but Liberal Catholicism. 
Here is the dangerous adversary which must at any 
cost be crushed. After hearing him for some time I 
could not help saying, u I hear you, Abbe, with the 
same feeling of painful astonishment which I should 
feel before some fearful physical deformity. They sub- 
ject your minds to a sort of dislocation which places 
you and your like in the category of intellectual mon- 
strosities." Indeed, I can compare the method of 
the Roman College, in deforming the understanding, 
only with the art by which certain gymnasts succeed 
in unjointing themselves in order to become clowns 
of the highest grade. Nor do I allow myself to be 
caught by the air of gentleness and good-nature that 
reigns in this superb establishment, nor the kiss which 
every pupil leaves at the close of the lecture on the 
hand of his master. I know too well what these fine 
appearances conceal. As to moral education, it 
should be remembered that informing and espionage 
are its fundamental principles. 

The Romans deeply feel the mischief done them 
by the Society of Jesus. A cutting speech is attrib- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 127 

uted to them on this topic. The Piazza di Gesu, 
which is before the church and convent of the Rev- 
erend Fathers, is famous at Rome for always being 
very windy. The people have turned the matter 
into an apologue. One day, say they, the wind met 
the devil before the Gesu — wait for me here on the 
square, said the devil to his companion ; I am going 
into the church for a second, and will be out in a 
moment. He went in, says the apologue, but he has 
never been seen to come out. For this reason the 
wind ccmtinues ever blowing in that accursed place. 
The Romans are gentle, keen, and amiable. The 
champions of the temporal power proclaim them 
perfectly happy, and draw an argument from their 
patience. They forget two things : first, that the 
energetic party is in exile, and that there remain 
here hardly more than those who let furnished apart- 
ments and the shopkeepers. The second is, that 
when slavery has become agreeable to him who 
undergoes it the crime is truly consummated, for it 
has reached the moral nature by destroying its power 
of resistance. If you say that the Romans are happy 
under such rule, you furnish your adversaries the 
most terrible argument against you. That is the 
proof that you have killed them by asphyxia. The 
most redoubtable of chains are those whose weight is 
no longer felt. But it is not true that the Roman 
people is content, and the foreign occupation is the 
proof. How should it be happy with no prospects 
before it, when all outlets are closed against its most 
legitimate ambition, and upon all the paths of public 
life it encounters a forestalling clergy which monop- 
olizes the chief offices. I beg a thousand pardons, I 
had forgotten the most illustrious Roman Senator, 



128 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

the heir of a great name for a very little thing, for in 
vain does he lodge at the Capitol ; he is only Presi- 
dent of the Roman municipality, which is merely 
charged with a few vulgar highway cares. One 
would say that in this august appellation, which re- 
calls an entire glorious history, there is a final irony 
addressed to the Roman people, the better to make 
them feel their nothingness. Senate, tribuneship, 
and comitia have all disappeared and come to melt 
into the absolutism of a Pontiff, from whom every 
thing comes, to whom every thing returns. This 
absorption of power in sacerdotal hands often has 
very droll consequences. Thus the theaters depend 
directly on the Holy Father, who has them conducted 
by a prelate; no buffoonery is played, not a ballet is 
given without the express authorization of ecclesiasti- 
cal authority. It is the Holy Father who by his sub- 
ordinates keeps the Roman lottery — a very immoral 
institution, a perpetual bait to evil lusts, an ever 
open gulf for the savings of the people. Thanks to 
this sadly won money, some of the pomps of worship 
are maintained ; and the Papacy seems to say, with 
Vespasian, that money never has a bad scent ; for the 
lottery is never closed, even when all the coffee-houses 
are shut in the solemn festivals, and when the so- 
called Apostolical Benediction is given to the city 
and the world — urbi et orbi. Finally, it is the repre- 
sentative of Jesus Christ, who upon occasion confirms 
death sentences, and sends a soul, perchance im- 
penitent, into eternity. This last touch finishes the 
picture. 

An unhappy Roman, condemned to the highest 
punishment for political offenses, saw a priest ap- 
proaching him in the cell which he was about to 






Eome, Italy, and the Council. 129 



leave, bringing him the final consolations of religion. 
He repelled him with indignation as the representa- 
tive of a rule that he abhorred, and which was put- 
ting him to death ; then he flung his face to the earth, 
before a large crucifix to show that he was no im- 
pious wretch, and that be could distinguish between 
the Papacy and Christ. Liberal Catholics ! come to 
Rome and open your eyes ! May you then show as 
much intelligence as that wretched man, for unless 
you make the distinction which he made before 
dying your religion will die, and you will be respon- 
sible for its death. 

E. de Peessense. 
9 



130 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTER VI. 

Religious Worship in Rome : its Magnificence Contrasted witli the 
Primitive Type — Culmination of Roman Art at the Reformation — 
Its Previous Condition — Gothic Architecture and the Roman 
Churches — The Cathedral at Cologne and Saint Peter's — Transfor- 
mation of Pagan Temples into Christian Churches — The same con- 
trast in Painting — Fra Bartolomeo — The Last Judgment of Michael 
Angelo and that of Fra Angelico — Raphael, Julius Romanus, and 
the Decline — Similar Phases in Church Music — Ancient and Modern 
Church Song — Church Music and the Reformation — Testimony of 
M. de Laprode — Defects of Protestant Worship — That of the Post- 
Apostolic Period — Ceremonies of Holy Week and Easter — Taking 
the Yail — Grotesque Appeals to the Populace — Mercenary Spirit of 
Catholic Worship — Its False Supernaturalisrn — Its Absolute Idola- 
try — A Touching Ceremony. 

Rome, Nov. 22, 1869. 

Dear Sir, — Before coming to the direct prepara- 
tions for the Council I wish to inquire what are the 
characteristics of worship at Rome. It is here that 
we learn to grasp the dominant trait of Catholic 
piety in its peculiarities, but without forgetting the 
multitude of souls who attain their God in the im- 
pulse of adoration, and in order to worship Jesus Christ, 
raise the heavy and splendid hangings which separate 
them from him. To judge any religion well we 
should not take it in those who, by dint of intellect- 
ual elevation, transform and idealize it. There are 
many Catholics, alike distinguished and sincere, who 
object when gross errors in their worship and doc- 
trine are pointed out. They always reply, " You 
understand nothing of the matter. You take the 
exceptions for the principle, and what offends you 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 131 

has a very plausible and Christian interpretation. 
They transport their Church with themselves to Ta- 
bor, where they gladly rear their own tabernacles, and 
see, under a sort of celestial atmosphere, all that 
seemed most contrary to the Gospel. Thus they de- 
ceive themselves in perfect good faith, and prolong 
illusions dangerous to all. We must descend from 
that mountain which soars into the pure ether of a 
transcendental mysticism and regain the plain ; there 
we find the popular, practical religion, that which 
acts on the masses; there we see it in its regular 
play. I freely compare actual Catholicism with one 
of those old 'manuscripts, so well deciphered by Car- 
dinal Mai, which are called palimpsests. They con- 
tain two layers of texts, one pagan, which is prim- 
itive, then a Christian text, which has been traced by 
the hand of some monk, so as to cover the previous 
characters. Put a sponge across it, and you recover 
the paganism. Well, now, it is this touch of the 
sponge that I would send across the evangelical text 
laid over the primitive text by noble minds who 
create a Catholicism in their own image, and for 
their exclusive use ; it is truly idolatry that I shall 
find. 

Now since the spiritual and Christian upper text 
does not exist at Eome, it is very easy to discover the 
true state of things. What strikes us at the outset is 
the pompous and theatrical character of the worship. 
Its magnificence expels depth and inwardness. This 
feature also appears in the architecture, paintings, mu- 
sic, at least in all that belongs to positively Roman 
and Catholic influences. Pass over the most ancient 
period of Christianity which preceded the great de- 
velopment of the temporal power. I have already 



132 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

described the ancient basilica, and shown that it re- 
mained faithful to the great notion of a spiritual 
Church distinguished from the general life of the 
world, and brought that distinction to mind as well 
in the arrangement of its edifices as in its institutions. 
All the basilicas of this type, which are numerous at 
Eome, present the same character. The paintings of 
the pulpits are perfectly simple without excluding 
pathos. It is ever the Good Shepherd, surrounded 
by his sheep, for whom he gives his life; the mystic 
vine, whence the Christian soul must draw its vigor; 
or, indeed, the Master surrounded by the martyrs who 
have given their name to the Church, as Saint Comics 
and Damien, or Saint Pudentiana, near great Saint 
Mary's, whose frescoes go back positively to the 
close of the fourth century, for Sig. Rossi found the 
exact date inscribed on the holy volume in the hands 
of the Christ. Doubtless we are no longer in the 
times of primitive simplicity and freedom ; but the 
Christian character is nevertheless strongly impressed 
on these antique edifices. As to the sacred music, it 
must have had a moving grandeur, to judge by what 
Saint Augustine says of the impression it produced 
on him at the decisive epoch of his conversion. He 
says in his Confessions, "With what rapture did I 
hear, O God, the holy songs of thy Church ! They 
brought tears to my eyes, and I was glad to weep." 
Et currebant lac?*ymce, et bene mihi cum eis. Re- 
member that at this time he was passing through the 
doleful crisis which made him a new man ; that he 
was tired to death of the false pomp of worldly life. 
Hence it is not the artist, but the Christian who 
speaks. But then, despite the growing and continu- 
ous progress of the hierarchical idea, we are yet far 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 133 

from the time when it will fashion a world to its own 
image. 

To ray mind, the truly Roman Catholic art dates 
from the Renaissance and the Reformation ; it then 
readied its culminating point, and revealed itself in 
full sincerity. Until the Reformation the Church 
contained in its bosom all the elements which subse- 
quently separated and even fell into open war. All 
these tendencies existed within her in a sort of em- 
bryonic state, and all drawn up under the Papal 
crook, but preserving their special direction, and not 
coming into clear rupture. Who could deny that 
long before the Reformation German Catholicism 
was distinguished from Southern Catholicism ? The 
mystic fervors that the convents of the North shelter 
already reveal the need of direct and immediate com- 
munication with Deity. Even in Italian Catholicism 
there are many divergences which sometimes burst 
out, as in the grand figure of Savonarola ; but I prefer 
to compare these explosions of a freer Christian feel- 
ing to the sudden jet of a current of water which has 
long flowed under ground. It exists before darting 
up to the free air in a sparkling and echoing sheaf. 
Well, the Catholic art of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries profited by this yet undiminished wealth of 
the Church, when it still possessed all its treasures in 
their fruitful variety. I exaggerate nothing. I do 
not pretend that the Catholicism of that age was a 
species of anticipated Protestantism ; nay, it was 
truly the Church of unity and hierarchy, the new 
theocracy ; but it was, nevertheless, a Catholicism 
entirely different from that which was established 
after the great separation effected by the Reform, a 
Catholicism not yet bent to the Romish type, full of 



134 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

vigor and originality despite its errors, mystical and 
learned, austere and puissant. To that Catholicism 
we owe Gothic art, which has never been able to 
take root in Rome, and which failed from the very 
moment that she exercised a decidedly predom- 
inant influence in all the domains of that Church. 
What is Gothic art but precisely the grandest mani- 
festation of that Germanic Catholicism whence the 
Reform was to proceed ? Men may discuss its origin 
as much as they like ; they may credit the Romans 
for the arch, the Arabs for the broken lines of the 
ogive ; it nevertheless remains true that Gothic art 
was creative, and that it set its seal upon all the ele- 
ments that came to it from elsewhere ; it created as 
human genius does create, which is no God to draw 
its works out of nothingness ; but it is enough for it 
to have impressed on them a truly new mean- 
ing, an idea and a feeling that are its own, that men 
should be unable to dispute its originality. Now 
what is the meaning, the idea of the Gothic ? Enter 
the Cathedral of Cologne, and you will grasp it in a 
moment. In that vast edifice, and in its fellows, 
Gothic art desired to express the world and society 
as it conceived them. It is indeed a theocracy, but it 
brings it back to a truly Christian type ; it impresses 
on it the sign of redemption, then especially it flings 
it into the region of the infinite and the eternal with 
the bold spire which it directs to heaven. Stand in 
the Choir of the Cathedral, there you see all the lines 
come thronging together in a species of irresistible 
impulse. The ogive reproduces the same character- 
istic on a smaller scale. By the arrangement of its 
lines it also cries Excelsior! sursum corda! — Up, ever 
higher ! It should be observed that nothing like this 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 135 

had been seen before in the history of art. The pa- 
gan temple, especially under the enchanting form it 
took on in Greece, is an edifice of restricted propor- 
tions. It is solely intended as a habitation for the 
Deity. It sufficed that the cella was well adorned, 
that a statue of perfect beauty was deposited there, 
and that space was reserved for the altar of sacrifice. 
In its beautiful, sunny marbles it had preserved the 
smile of its religion. The Roman basilica, which is 
the most remarkable architectural creation of the 
kingly nation, is fully conformed to its genius ; it 
only admits the horizontal line; it is all length and 
breadth. Nothing carries the glance beyond this 
world, which is the sole empire that Rome has ever 
coveted. The Gothic cathedral, on the contrary, is like 
a great memento of the eternal life which Christ has 
won and given to us. Thus, as a poet has said, it is 
as though, having knelt down in its robe of stone, it 
prayed. I prefer, to be sure, the upper chamber at 
Jerusalem with its tongues of fire ; but it cannot be 
denied that the Catholicism of the Middle Ages, 
through all its obscurity, had its tongues of fire to 
celebrate the God of the Gospel. I appeal to those 
sublime chants of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
which, with the hymns of Luther, are the finest, most 
pathetic things produced by Christian song. 

Now compare the religious architecture of Rome 
with these monuments of the North ! The contrast 
is absolute. Is it not especially remarkable that it 
should have completely shunned the Gothic, even in 
its great epoch ? A single church, that of Santa Maria 
delta Minerva, shows traces of it. Still they have has- 
tened to spoil that by covering it with gilding, and over- 
loading it with ornaments in bad taste. Except this, 



136 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

all the Roman churches are patterned on the ancient 
basilica ; I know that they are arranged in the form 
of a Greek or Roman cross, but what decidedly pre- 
vails is the idea of external grandeur; it is exten- 
sion, and not elevation, which characterizes them. 
There we hear the incessant echo of the old Roman 
device, Thine the empire ! Think above all, of rule, 
dominion ! 

Most of these churches are very mediocre, except 
in the interior, where works of art are piled np, but 
where decoration is lavished till the eye wearies of it. 
The architects have spent their pride in the arrange- 
ment of fagades, but have never abandoned their 
routine in the general arrangement. 

If one would have a complete idea of Roman re- 
ligious architecture, he should consider Saint Peter's. 
I know of no more complete contrast than that which 
exists between the splendid basilica of the Yatican 
and the Cathedral of Cologne. I do not restrain my 
admiration of the former. I admit that you rarely 
obtain a grander view than that of the mass of monu- 
ments of which it is the center. The semi-circular 
porticoes which surround the square, in the midst of 
which an obelisk rises, form the finest introduction 
to the basilica itself. The latter is so harmoniously 
arranged that its grandeur is not at all overwhelming, 
because no part is salient orinharmonious. The cupola, 
which rises to a dizzy height, seems a natural develop- 
ment of the building. The five naves of the interior 
are connected with the apsis, like the branches of a 
gigantic trunk ; and yet all this grandeur does not 
soar. It extends and unfolds in space, but does not 
truly tower. The Sainte Chapelle of Paris, an ideal 
creation of the reign of Saint Louis, would disappear 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 137 

in one of the chapels of Saint Peter's, and yet it lifts 
you far higher ; it has an impulse, a something in- 
expressibly winged, in its Gothic lines, which bears 
the soul aloft. Elevation is not a matter of di- 
mensions, but of direction and inspiration. Saint 
Peter's, with all its magnificence, does but produce 
the effect of that high mountain whence is seen, not 
heaven, but all the kingdoms of the world. Has not 
the bargain of earthly domination been proposed to 
the Roman hierarchy, and accepted by them in ex- 
change for spiritual dominion ? In this respect has 
it not imitated the degenerate Judaism of the syna- 
gogue, and clung to that mastery more than to the 
Divine Master, who said, "My kingdom is not of 
this world ? " Saint Peter's, and the other great 
basilicas of Rome, seem to me to express this devia- 
tion from primitive Christianity by the most striking 
symbol. Every thing recalls Christ the Ruler, and 
nothing leads us back to the Crucified, his oppro- 
brium and his inward glories. Saint Peter's is the 
capitol of the Papacy. At least, it reveals the high 
art and bears the impress of the haughty genius of 
Michael Angelo. But what shall we say of the archi- 
tecture of the Jesuit churches? This introduces us 
to the second period of the Roman domination ; the 
Reform has shaken its torch over the world ; the 
empire of Europe is disputed with the Papacy. The 
times of its haughty royalty are gone ; absolutism 
must grow supple, but bend like steel without ever 
breaking. This medley of ruse and unconquerable 
force is the whole of Jesuitism, that great and skillful 
prop of Pontifical authority in these difficult days 
when an adroit and artful policy must be united with 
obstinacy. But in this game men lose their grandeur, 



138 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

and the architecture of the Jesuits is all delicate and 
complicated. Seeing the overwrought ornamenta- 
tion of their churches, one thinks of the processes 
used in glossing up a pretentious old woman. They 
have laid down velvet carpets on the road to paradise, 
and striven to enlarge its entrance. Their history, and 
also their genius, may be read on the stones of their 
edifices. This is likewise a decisive test for Roman 
architecture. It has always been able to appropriate 
without effort the ancient temples or pagan edifices, 
like the temple of Faustina, and that of Venus and 
Bona, and the baths of Doinitian, transformed by 
Michael Angelo into the fine Church of Saint Mary 
of the Angels. Never could any Gothic edifice have 
had such an origin. 

If I pass from architecture to painting I might 
make similar remarks. It is indisputable that the 
great mystical and religious school of painting also 
preceded the time when Roman Catholicism estab- 
lished itself in opposition to the Reform, and that its 
highest inspirations belong to the same movement 
which produced Gothic art and reared the cathedrals. 
I have already spoken of the profound impression 
produced on me by that ingenuous and mystical style 
of painting which preceded the Renaissance, and still 
profited by its first jet without denying what forms 
its religious grandeur. It was in Flanders and Ger- 
many that it was born and perfected its methods. 
The purest Christian ideal sparkled in the profound 
glance of the Virgins of Van Eyk, Albert Durer, 
and Holbein. Italy followed the movement, and 
tempered its austerity with that inimitable grace whose 
secret is hers. It was, indeed, between the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries that this great Christian art 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 139 

attained its height. What exquisite tenderness, what 
celestial candor, what burning ecstacies in those 
pictures and frescoes of the Fra Angelicos and the 
Francias ! There is a chapel at the Vatican, painted 
by the former of these masters, which people often 
neglect to visit because it is not in the usual pro- 
gramme. It is the chapel of Saint Laurence and 
Saint Stephen. Here is great Christian painting ; a 
little too sacerdotal, but the soul itself breaks out in 
those living colors, and repeats to us its love for 
Christ, its immortal hope, and its sympathy for all suf- 
fering. I also remember the famous fresco of the Con- 
vent of Saint Mark at Florence, which groups the 
principal saints and doctors around the cross in one 
impulse of devotion. How well I there recognized 
the painter who shed abundant tears when he took 
his brush to portray the features of Christ or of the 
Madonna ! 

As I think, the last and the greatest of these truly 
Christian masters was Fra Bartolomeo, the Dominican 
disciple of Savonarola. Roman Catholicism cannot 
claim the faithful friend of the Florentine Reformer 
who was burned as a heretic. His picture of the burial 
of Christ by Mary, Saint John, and Mary Magdalene, 
which is in the Pitti Museum at Florence, is an act 
of adoration ; here the brush has lost nothing ; it has 
all its suavity, all its splendor, all its firmness ; but it 
is impossible long to contemplate that work without 
feeling that blended tenderness and profound respect 
for Christ which is expressed with a sort of impetu- 
osity in the prostration of Mary Magdalene, with 
angelic sweetness in the glance of Saint John, and an 
immeasurable sadness in that of the Madonna. Well, 
this profoundly Christian art is not the child of 



140 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Rome. Doubtless its works are ■ numerous there, 
because the Papacy has contrived to form the most 
magnificent of museums in the Eternal City; but 
the inspiration of these mystical paintings came from 
elsewhere. Raphael, who understood and expressed 
every thing, may be adduced against us, but his 
genius unfolded under the soft sky of Umbria. I 
know well that it was at Eome that he painted the 
Dispute on the Holy Sacrament ; but among the seek- 
ing and doubting theologians have I not seen the 
noble countenance of Savonarola? Can we deny 
that the breath of the Reform has passed that way ? 
At any rate, it was at Rome that he painted the 
Fornarina, the Galatea and Psyche, exquisite but not 
at all Christian works. As to Michael Angelo, none 
is ignorant how far the leaven of the Reform had 
fermented in him, as shown by his letters to Yittoria 
Colonna. When he gave himself up without reserve 
to the inspiration of the place, he painted at the 
Sistine Chapel his fresco of the Last Judgment. 
That, I grant, is quite Roman. I admire its power 
and fire, especially when I contemplate it under the 
purple light of evening. But I cannot think it a 
religious painting. That Christ who resembles an 
antique Hercules, and who curses the reprobate with 
such a terrible gesture, is truly the Christ of the 
Vatican, of the Inquisitors, whose arm is only lifted 
to crush. All the pagan details that surround the 
pincipal figure remind us of the court of Julius II. 
and Leo X. Compare this formidable fresco with 
the picture of Era Angelico on the same subject, that is 
to be seen at the Corsini Palace. Here the drama is 
purely moral ; the inconsolable sorrow which appears 
in the features of the impenitent is not the simple re- 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 141 

flection of the flasli of avenging lightnings ; it springs 
up from within. This is the Gospel. Touching the 
soil of Rome, Christian painting speedily loses its truly 
religious character, though it sheds a dazzling splen- 
dor with Raphael, whose genius was too great not to 
escape local influences more than any other artist, 
though he also underwent them toward the close of 
his short and brilliant career. Do not forget that 
one of his pupils was Julius Romanus, whose brush, 
when no longer restrained and guided by his master's 
sketches, promptly became voluptuous and sensual. 
With the Pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572) the 
decline begins ; mannerists encumber churches, 
convents, and palaces with their conventional art. 
The Cavalier d'Arpino, (1569,) whose works swarm at 
Rome, is the representative of that school, without 
grandeur or lofty inspiration. The religious character 
is more and more effaced. Bernino in. architecture, 
and d'Arpino in painting, are truly Roman artists, 
and such as Catholicism under the yoke of Jesuitism 
must love. 

Church music passes through the same phases as 
painting and architecture. The plain chant is the 
echo of that of the Middle Ages ; it is grave and sad. 
Then you have a few truly great masters, who, like 
Allegri, write in a grand and almost monumental 
style. The Miserere of this composer, which we hear 
on Holy Thursday and Friday at the Sistine Chapel, 
without organ accompaniment, produces an imposing 
effect. But if the Pope's Chapel on its great days be 
excepted, the music heard here is deplorable in com- 
position. In churches of the second class it is bad at 
every point ; they have not confined themselves to 
pillaging celebrated operas which are sung with all 



142 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

the vivacity of theatrical choirs. At Saint John de 
Lateran and Saint Peter's the execution is careful. I 
have already spoken of the chapel of the former 
basilica. As to the second, which is famous at Rome, 
and rivals the Sistine, I heard it on a great and 
solemn occasion, the 18th of November, the anniver- 
sary of the dedication of Saint Peter's. Two choirs 
responded to each other with organ accompaniments. 
The execution was perfect ; the magnificent bass 
voices, the sopranos, ever strange and questionable; 
though it is claimed that they are no longer permitted 
to purchase their voices on the terms at which they 
were procured in the last century. But hearing 
those roulades and cavatinas which formed a true 
artificial fire of dazzling notes, who would ever have 
imagined that they were singing the Penitential 
Psalms, and that the sighings and sacred impulses of 
our prophets gave occasion to this effeminate vocal- 
ization? Theatrical music, when it is truly fine and 
passionate, is far superior in seriousness to these bastard 
compositions, a v estry pot-pourri style of airs brought 
together from all the musical works which have had 
any popularity. No doubt that where Catholi- 
cism has a different inspiration ; it has treasures of 
Christian music. Mozart's Requiem, the masses of 
Beethoven, Weber, and Rossini, reveal a very differ- 
ent inspiration, but this does not please at Rome. 
They prefer soft harmonies, which lull the soul and 
deliver it, fast asleep, to ecclesiastical authority. It 
is not here, but in Germany, that true religious music 
is to be heard. Listen to the Passion of Sebastian 
Bach and his sublime hymns, and you will no longer 
allow yourself to say that the Reformation ignored 
high art. Here it is by turns majestic and profound. 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 143 

rising far above those profane masses which are sung 
to strains too light to satisfy human passion. For 
myself, I would give all the music of Rome for the 
choral of Luther, chanted in a German church by 
thousands of manly and vibrant voices. To show, 
moreover, that my judgment is not dictated by par- 
tiality, allow me to support it by the testimony of an 
illustrious Catholic, Yictor de Laprade, who has just 
published the following lines in the Correspondant : 
" It seems to me that the license now allowed in 
church music exceeds all that the religious sentiment 
can tolerate. When I hear military flourishes howl- 
ing, grating, and barking beside the altar, I do not 
feel sure that I am in this world. Finally, w T hen I 
see bands of actors, to give them their true name, 
introduced into the choir, mingling with the priests 
during the sacrifice, in vain do I hear musical mas- 
terpieces ; it is impossible for me to feel more pious 
or devotional than at the opera. A Catholic from 
conviction, I content myself with sighing before such 
symptoms, and remembering that there are fleeting 
abuses in the Church; but were I a freethinker, I 
should say to myself, There is the music of a vanishing 
religion. For myself, it seems to me that in the Cath- 
olic ceremonies of our days, music has broken the 
discipline which the Church had wisely imposed. I 
can allow none of the bad reasons, useless to enumer- 
ate, and not very religious, which have led ecclesias- 
tical zeal into this evil path. It is not by a profusion 
of hymns and candles that souls are drawn to the 
truth and retained in the faith." 

Having spoken of the accessories of worship, let us 
now speak of worship itself — the truly Romish wor- 
ship. I do not assume a sectarian stand-point, as 



144 Home, Italy, and the Council. 

though the ideal of worship were attained in the bosom 
of Protestantism. I think that, with few exceptions, 
that worship has followed its inclination too far; and 
that, from the legitimate desire of never lacking spir- 
ituality, it has fallen into barrenness, especially in our 
Calvinistic Churches. That severe devotion is the no- 
blest of all when fed by fervent piety — it transports 
the mind to a naked and austere summit — and, if the 
soul then spreads her wings to rise toward invisible re- 
alities, it certainly comes nearer God than in any other 
religious form. Yet adoration does not here occupy 
sufficient space ; too much is granted to pious speech : 
the unutterable sighings of a heart burning with holy 
love are too far stifled bv logical formulas. I think 
that almost perfect worship once existed in the Church, 
after the apostolic epoch which in all points is in- 
comparable: this was at Alexandria in the time of 
Clement and Origen. The liturgic fragments which 
have been preserved are admirable ; their spirituality is 
complete, but adoration pours out its vase of perfumes 
at the feet of Jesus like Mary the sister of Lazarus. 
The center of the worship is not the altar, which does 
not exist, (aras non hctbemus, says Minutius Felix,) 
but the eucharistic table, which reminds the Church of 
the greatest of the gifts of God, though without forget- 
ting the others. I hope to set this characteristic of 
the worship of the second century in clear light in 
the last volume of my history of the Church ; I will 
not now dwell further upon it. I am persuaded that 
we have much to learn from that great period, and 
that, by satisfying legitimate wants which appear on 
every hand, and of which Puseyism is a false and ex- 
aggerated expression, we shall avoid many dangers, 
and shall labor efficiently for the development of 



Eome, Italy, a^d the Council, 145 

tlie Churcli according to the necessities of the times. 
Catholicism has preserved a few traces, a few recol- 
lections of the primitive adoration, and we shall do 
well in seeking to glean them up from those troubled 
waters and clear them of their alloy. But we must 
admit that the alloy is so gross, especially at Eome, 
that the pearl is completely buried. Let us try to 
characterize in a few touches that abased worship 
which is a perpetual contradiction of the Evangelical 
type. 

The first characteristic of it that strikes me is what 
I shall call its absolute ritualism. I do not blame 
rites in themselves; I know that they are indispen- 
sable, that public adoration should have certain forms 
regulated beforehand, so that every thing may pro- 
ceed with order and propriety, and that piety may 
not be troubled with constant surprises. But Chris- 
tian rites should be simple, and should not stifle spon- 
taneity ; they should be so conceived as to appeal to 
the living sentiments of the soul, to awaken them, 
and speak to the heart and the intellect. At Eome 
rites are so conceived as to take the place of every 
thing; the prescribed form is not the stimulant or 
the expression of piety, it is a species of ready 
mounted machine which performs its functions like 
the prayer-mills of the Orientals, but not without 
crushing the moral life in their complicated wheels. 
The individual completely disappears before the 
Church; it is she that prays by his lips, that kneels 
with him at the prescribed moment, who rises up 
at command; at every moment is heard in the ba- 
silica of Saint Peter's, as in a ship, the whistle of the 
machinist. The sacred language is dead ; it is the 

voice of the past, most commonly unintelligible to 

10 



146 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

him who makes himself its passive and momentary 
echo. The Gospel or Epistle is not read, but chanted 
in a nasal tone, which does not allow a thought to 
reach the mind. The sacred book is cut and slashed 
up day by day without the believer's being ever able 
to bring his thirsty lip to the leaping fountain. The 
spirit is thus always and every-where sacrificed to 
the letter ; rites understood and practiced as they are 
at Rome are truly the petrifaction of worship. 

Its second characteristic is, that it is an exhibition 
of the Christian mysteries, or, rather, a daily effort to 
renew them. In this point it approximates the an- 
cient mysteries of paganism. In those mysteries the 
pagans in reality adored nature and her hidden 
forces ; their effort was to represent to themselves in 
a complete manner her constant revolution, and espe- 
cially that great law which draws life from death, and 
in which they sought to find a promise or a hope for 
themselves. That was all their consolation. Thus, 
in the most celebrated of those mysteries, the Eleu- 
sinian, they represented in the carrying off of Pro- 
serpine to hell, and her return to the light, that mar- 
velous law of nature which carries a grain of wheat 
down into the earth in order to bring forth from it a 
brilliant sheaf ; it was tracing out to the eyes, and, as 
it were, renewing, the permanent history of the natural 
divinity which they adored. The God of the Gospel 
belongs to a very different domain. He is the God 
of the spirit and of liberty. He consummated the 
salvation of the world by a free sacrifice offered once 
for all, which is not repeated like the periodical 
crises of nature. It was necessary for the pagan to 
reproduce them before his eyes in all their successive 
evolutions, for it was in these very evolutions, or in 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 147 

the profound acquaintance which he might obtain 
with them, that he placed all his hope of salvation, 
at least in the mysteries. It is enough for the Chris- 
tian to grasp with his heart and mind the divine act 
to which he owes the redemption of his soul ; his wor- 
ship should be its memorial at the same time that it 
should express his profound gratitude. The Eucha- 
rist combines these characteristics. It does not play 
the drama of the passion ; it brings it to mind and 
confirms it ; it is likewise the spiritual sacrifice which 
unites the disciple with his Master. The Romish 
worship has very different pretensions. It aims on 
the one hand, like the pagan mysteries, to represent 
in very truth the history of its God ; on the other 
hand it plays the passion; not believing that the 
sacrifice of the cross was sufficient to cover all sin, it 
pretends to continue it by the hand of its priests. 
The mass is very decidedly an attempt to represent 
the immolation of Calvarv. It is at Rome that this 
character of Catholic worship appears complete and 
unvailed, especially in the ceremonies of Holy Week. 
Day by day they unfold the scenes of the pas- 
sion before the eyes of the faithful. Thus on Holy 
Wednesday, while the Miserere is chanted, twelve 
lighted candles represent the twelve Apostles ; these 
are extinguished one after another, to show their base 
desertion of the Master.. On Holy Thursday the 
pretended Vicar of Christ prostrates himself before 
tw 7 elve poor priests and washes their feet; then he 
makes them sit down at a table prepared for them 
and serves them. Holy Wednesday is the day of the 
burial of the host ; it is deposited in Saint Paul's 
Chapel as in a sepulcher; all the candles are extin- 
guished, not a bell resounds. It is a complete con- 



148 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

trast with Palm Sunday, when the Pope, still repre- 
senting Christ, makes his triumphal entry into the 
basilica of Saint Peter's while the sacred branches 
shade him and bend before him. The morning of the 
third day they go in great pomp to seek the host ; 
it is brought out of the tabernacle which served as its 
sepulcher, and presented to the people as the Divine 
Arisen, and the Pope celebrates with the confession 
of Saint Peter the grand mass of Easter Day. When 
lie elevates the holy elements before the assembly 
they all bow down. A very beautiful hymn rises 
from the depths of the Confession, or from the pre- 
tended tomb of the Apostles. The people think 
themselves before their newly-risen God ; then the 
Holy Father ascends a balcony of the basilica and 
gives the benediction to the city and the world, (urH 
et orhi.) Is not Pome, then, truly the Eleusis of Ca- 
tholicism — the place of the great mysteries where the 
history of God is solemnly played? At Jerusalem, 
where the pomp is naturally much less imposing, 
they have in one point improved the spectacle. 

In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher I saw a doll, 
the image of Christ nailed to a wooden cross. It 
was detached with all reverence from the gibbet, and 
they went to bury it till Easter morn. It is well 
known that at Christmas mangers are arranged in 
most of the churches, and that the mystery of the 
nativity is represented as in spring they represent 
the mystery of the crucifixion. You can very well 
understand after this that the theater sprang from 
the Church in the Middle Ages ; we may say that at 
Rome it has decidedly remained in it. Nothing is 
more striking in this regard than the taking of the 
vail. I witnessed this ceremony at Naples when it 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 149 

was under the rule of the Bourbons, a worthy chapel 
of ease to Rome. A number of young girls, among 
them one particularly fair and sad, were conducted 
by their parents to the altar to pronounce the vows 
which were forever to separate them from the world. 
The drama was divided into two acts. In the first 
gay and brilliant music recalled those worldly pleas- 
ures which the young girls were about to renounce. 
Then a priest pronounced a truly frantic discourse as 
he pointed them in the Host to the Spouse to whom 
they should give themselves. He spoke with a spe- 
cious and passionate realism, which produced the 
strangest and most painful effect. The final cere- 
mony at length came on, to the sound of mournful 
music, their locks falling under the shears. Then the 
vows. 

The Church likewise delights in giving extraor- 
dinary exhibitions to awaken and pique curiosity. 
The other day I saw near a little chapel a few 
steps from Saint John de Lateran, grossly made, but 
very expressive, figures in wax, which displayed a 
frightful execution of Catholic missionaries in the 
Orient. People thronged before the horrible specta- 
cle, and offerings for the work fell thick into the 
wooden bowls of the collectors. This fair-day meas- 
ure is not disdained, and is very productive. Strangely 
enough, in this southern land, where people feel an ex- 
traordinary horror for all that hints at death, it has 
been surrounded with the most dismal circumstances in 
order the better to act on the imagination. Nothing 
is more funereal than the long train of a confraternity, 
with its cowls dropped down, as it accompanies a cof- 
fin to the cemetery. The Capuchin friars here pre- 
sent a permanent funeral display. They have be- 



150 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

thought themselves to arrange in the vaults of their 
principal church a whole army of skeletons, recruited 
from the dead of their order, who have the privilege 
of obtaining an immortality of terror. What strikes 
me further in the Romish worship is its mercenary 
character. I speak not merely of the money it de- 
mands to sustain its sumptuousness, and the Peter 
pence exacted in all lands with so much urgency 
and skill : I particularly mean to designate that sad 
error consisting in purchasing heaven by our works 
and merits. Here it displays itself without modesty 
or check. As a counterpoise, or rather, as a comple- 
ment, it has the indulgence market. Its treasury is 
freely opened in the Pontifical City. Every Church 
disputes for a share, and assures the benefit of them 
to all who submit to given practices : these fallacious 
promises are read on its front. Nowhere do men 
more ingenuously imagine to expiate relished worldly 
pleasures by the weariness of reciting litanies, and 
wearing out their knees on the pavements of churches. 
The division of the year into profane and festival 
days rests on no other principle. The distinction 
between Lent and Carnival is most marked at Rome. 
There the latter shakes in full security the bells of 
gross folly. It, too, is an ecclesiastical institution. 
Balls, theaters, joyous and unrestrained feasts, can be 
multiplied at pleasure. The antique bacchanal is 
mistress of the streets of Rome during this period of 
liberty or license on condition of stilling its laughter 
at the fixed hour, changing its comic mask for a 
mask of mourning, and covering its head with ashes. 
The Church, like a kind mother, receives into her 
courts the vinous turbulence of yesterday, diets it, 
and makes it listen to masses on masses. The mis- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 151 

chief is, that the sin was foreseen and accepted as 
well as the penitence ; it is a calendar affair. 

A fourth characteristic of Catholic worship, as pre- 
sented to us here at Rome, is the marvelous or false 
miracle every- where supplanting true miracles, and 
-banishing them to the shade. Ridiculous legends 
spring up like weeds in a badly cultivated field ; they 
almost entirely conceal the great evangelical reali- 
ties. The great Christian supernaturalism is thus 
compromised by the fantastic supernatural, which 
seems to be one with it. You know how popular 
Madonnas that moved their eyes have been. Several 
notable conversions have been attributed to them. 
There is no sanctuary which has not its marvelous 
history, beginning with Notre Dame de Lorette, 
which was transported through the air from Pales- 
tine to Italy. At Naples the frightful jugglery of 
the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of Saint Jan- 
uarius goes on every year without any interference 
from the Pontifical authority, which accepts and pa- 
tronizes it, even though the process by which the co- 
agulated blood of the saint is made to flow is well 
known. The Salette Springs, and those of the Grotto 
de Lourdes, which are said to effect miraculous cures, 
are patented at Rome, who, not content with her 
own prodigies, every-where encourages this species 
of gross magic, which recalls the most shameful times 
of the decline of Rome, but which is very fruitful. 
It is easy to comprehend the way in which belief in 
false miracles springs up. We have only to take the 
commemorative chapel reared near the Church of 
Saint Agnes, in memory of the great peril w r hich the 
Pope escaped some years since in that very spot, 
where the lower floor of the edifice suddenly sank 



152 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

under him without his experiencing any mischief. 
Surely nothing is more natural than to feel a lively 
emotion of gratitude to God in such circumstances, 
and publicly to express it ; but he was pleased to see 
in the providential protection which saved his life a 
miracle of the highest order, a special intervention 
of the Madonna. He caused a large picture of the 
whole scene to be painted in vivid colors. In the 
foreground the Pope is seen, calm and smiling amid 
the peril; while those present, and among them cer- 
tain French generals, display the basest dismay. 
The epaulettes of our braves are not spared by the 
artist, w T ho did not fear to depict them trembling in 
presence of the august serenity of the Holy Fa- 
ther. Saint Agnes appears above him in the air 
shielding him with a protective hand ; then in the 
background of the picture the Madonna, surrounded 
by angels, commands the whole scene. This com- 
plaisant interpretation of a very simple fact by the 
painter, or rather by those who ordered the picture, 
passes for a fact in the eyes of most spectators. It 
is understood that Saint Agnes and the Madonna 
appeared to the Holy Father. This is Gospel truth, 
and future ages will recount the great prodigy. 
Thus we witness the formation of the legend. 

Let us indicate finally the last characteristic of the 
Roman worship, which is an unbridled idolatry. It 
need not be pretended here that the images are not 
adored, and that the homage paid them is meant 
for God. They are as positively worshiped as fe- 
tiches. This cannot be doubted when we have seen 
with what ardor the foot of the pretended statue of 
Saint Peter is kissed in the basilica of the Vatican, 
which is quite worn by the lips of its thousands of 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 153 

worshipers. The image of the Bambino, (babe,) ex- 
hibited by the Capuchins in Christmas festivals, re- 
ceives veritable worship. Madonnas, covered with 
sumptuous ornaments, are elevated to the rank of 
miraculous virgins, and treated as the most celebrated 
statues of Yenus and Juno were in antiquity. As to 
the relics of the saints, they shoot up in an abundance 
which cannot but be very disquieting, since more 
than one villain is the object of profound veneration 
under the name of some martyr. There is no end to 
the fables told about these pretendedly sacred re- 
mains. If they do not show us, as in the Armenian 
Convent at Jerusalem, the stones that " would have 
cried out," or, as at Florence, the relics of the Holy 
Trinity, which are a new mystery, and the most 
astonishing of all, added to those of the faith, they 
furnish you with a bit of all the saints known and 
unknown ; the gold or diamond setting makes the 
pretended bone pass. Nothing excites the devout 
part of the multitude more than this type of piety. 
But there is another more subtile idolatry, which is 
daily growing, and which consists in exalting the 
creature at the expense of the Creator and the Re- 
deemer. I have already dwelt on that frightful 
apotheosis of the Madonna, which must transform the 
Trinity into a quaternity. Since the proclamation of 
the Immaculate Conception it has been assuming an 
unheard-of development, unlike any thing known in 
the past. Catholicism has but two ever-present and 
adored divinities — Mary in heaven, and the Pope on 
earth. Thus in every solemn ceremony incense is 
burned before the Pope, his Cardinals, and Canons — 
before whoever personifies the hierarchy. In pres- 
ence of the Pope the Romish worship cries out by 



154 Home, Italy, and the Council. 

all its organs, " The voice of a god, and not of a 



man." 



Thus there is growing up from day to day a gross 
materialism in worship ever in quest of new idols. 
Saint Joseph is now in great favor ; his medals heal 
body and soul. To-morrow it will be some other fa- 
vorite of this gross piety — gross even in its liveliest 
ardors — which, with its false miracles, its effeminate 
ditties, and its unlimited credulity, is a continual 
defiance hurled at the human mind at a moment 
when the true supernatural has enough to do in de- 
fending itself against the assaults of unbelief. We 
should rather shed bitter tears over such deplorable 
things than rejoice at them with sectarian satisfac- 
tion. Let us not forget' that it is athwart this abased 
form of Christianity that a large part of Europe sees 
not merely the Christian ideal, but the divine ideal ; 
and are we astonished after this that she plunges 
headlong into Atheism % 

Before closing this letter suffer me to speak of a 
fine and touching ceremony which I have just wit- 
nessed. To-day, November 22, was the Feast of 
Saint Cecilia. In her honor they had likewise illu- 
minated the famous catacombs of Saint Callistus, of 
which I will send full details in one of my approach- 
ing letters, for it is one of the most remarkable dis- 
coveries of Christian archeology. Those somber pas- 
sages, bordered with the tombs of the early Chris- 
tians, were enlightened with a trembling light, as in 
ancient days when they assembled on the anniversary 
of their martyrs to fortify themselves by recalling 
their holy memory. A considerable multitude inun- 
dated the crypt, where a pious commemorative serv- 
ice was celebrated. It was a scene from past ages 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 155 

standing out against the sad and obscure background 
of present circumstances. It sufficed also to ascend 
from that subterranean place to the open air to sadly 
perceive what invincible paganism is displayed on 
this old Latin soil, which has, however, drank up the 
blood of so many glorious martyrs of the religion of 
the Gospel. 

E. de Pressense. 



156 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTER VII. 

Preparations for the Council — Arrangements of the Council Hall — 
— Sessions Secret — Name of the Council — Its Memorial Column — The 
Entertainment of the Members — Ceremonial of the Assembly — Pre- 
cedence of the Members — Labors of the Preparatory Committees — 
Publication of the Proceedings — The Proceedings to be in Latin — 
Confusion in its Pronunciation — Other Differences — French Bishops 
mainly Ultramontanists — Chorus of Priests — The French Liberals: 
Bishop Dupanloup, Prince de Broglie, Abbe Noirlieu, and Professor 
Tassy — The American Prelates — Devotion of the Irish Bishops to 
Rome — Subserviency of the English Bishops — The Belgians — The 
Austrian Martyrs — The German Liberals — The Demonstration at 
Fulda — The Letters of Janus — Reforms demanded — Dollinger on 
Papal Infallibility — Probable Conclusion on this Question. 

Rome, November, 1869. 

It is now time to speak of the preparations for the 
Council, since I shall soon have to talk about its open- 
ing. Yet the preparatory phase has its own impor- 
tance ; it also bears a special character belonging 
solely to itself. Many opinions which subsequently, 
after the conclusion, will think themselves obliged to 
blend in the final grand Te Denm, and rally to the 
decisions of the Council, appear to-day in singular 
vivacity, and yield the true measure of that famous 
unity which is a mere myth. For I expect likewise 
to be shown how convictions may change between 
to-day and to-morrow otherwise than through per- 
suasion. And the proof that they do not change is, 
that when once the grand parade ends, they will rise 
up again, and put themselves in quest of elastic inter- 
pretations, which they will surely find ; for what 
does not the human mind find when its position is 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 157 

already taken ? However, when once the Council 
shall have spoken, more prudence and circumlocu- 
tion must be used. This is also the favorable hour to 
hear the sound of the diverse bells of Catholic Chris- 
tendom before the great thorough bass of Saint 
Peter's shall have drowned every thing with its 
echoing clamor, and filled the air with volleys of 
formulas and anathemas. I shall strive not to quit 
the solid ground of attested facts, not to get upon the 
quicksand of hypotheses, for all wagers are open and 
all suppositions possible, as to what is soon to take 
place in the metropolis of Catholicism, and the influ- 
ences which will finally predominate. I shall begin 
by speaking of the external preparations, to which 
great importance is attached in this land of spectacles, 
where religious masters-of-ceremonies play so great 
a part. You may confide in the information that I 
send you ; I draw it from a very sure and well-in- 
formed source, and in no respect do I change its 
substance. Only do not forget that this source is 
Catholic, and consequently that things are presented 
in their most favorable light. 

The material labors on the iuclosure of the Council, 
in the basilica of Saint Peter's, are nearly finished. 
Admission to this inclosure has just been forbidden 
to the public. The partition which separates it from 
the rest of the church only extends to the arch of the 
transept ; it does not exceed two thirds of the 
height of the pillars. It is very solid, and, moreover, 
is covered with thick linen. A large door, whose 
leaves, it is said, will be unclosed during the public 
sessions, has been opened in its midst. In the back- 
ground of the inclosure the seats of the Cardinals are 
seen, arranged in a semicircle, and elevated seven 



158 Bome, Italy, and the Council. 

steps above the floor of the Chapel of Saint Processus 
and Saint Martinien. The throne of the Holy 
Father forms its center, and is exalted four steps higher. 
Behind the Pontifical throne is a passage through 
which the Holy Father will come to the sessions 
without needing to traverse the inclosure; this issue 
ends in an invisible corridor, and a secret staircase 
leading to the Vatican. At the height of thirteen 
feet above the seats of the Sacred College two desks 
rise, one on the right and the other on the left, 
capable of containing a dozen persons each. I am 
assured that they are intended for stenographers. 
Above these desks runs a woodwork, which will be 
decorated with twenty-four medallions, representing 
the popes who have convoked Councils. These por- 
traits are none other than the cartoons, in mosaic, 
which adorn the circumference of the Church of 
Saint Paul without the walls. The Holy Father has 
likewise ordered two pictures, representing Saint 
Peter and Saint Paul, which will be suspended in 
the inclosure. From the seats of the cardinals pro- 
ceed, in straight files, the seats of the bishops along 
both sides of the semicircle. Thev are arranged in 
six rows. The first is on the level of the ground ; 
the others succeed, ascending in due order like the 
benches of an amphitheater. You perceive four inter- 
vals, cutting perpendicularly the files of the seats 
and serving to admit the members of the Council to 
their respective places. These places are overlooked 
on each side by two superposed desks, intended for 
the Theologians, which fill up the breadth of the two 
arcades of the right lateral nave. It is thought that 
the tribune for orators will rise at a short distance 
from the Pontifical throne, near the seats of the 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 159 

Sacred College ; the Patriarchs will be placed imme- 
diately below the Sacred College. 

As to the tribunes of the Christian Princes and 
their representatives, or their orators, as they were 
called in former Councils, they will be constructed at a 
short distance from the Papal throne. The Holy 
Father recently said that if the sovereigns or their rep- 
resentatives desired to attend the Council they could, 
but that in no case could they set up claims and 
insist on rights which do not comport with the times. 
Further, no invitation has been addressed by the 
Pope to princes or governments. 

There is some talk of covering the entire inclosure of 
the Council with a glass arch, to keep the voice of the 
orators from being lost in the depth of the edifices 
whose extreme sonorousness would drown their words 
in a multitude of echoes and a prolonged reverbera- 
tion of sound. They would seek by this means to 
render the inclosure of the Council fit for the most 
important debates. Until now it had been proposed 
to reserve it exclusively for the solemn public sessions, 
those where it is not indispensable that the discourses 
of the orators should be heard by all the fathers. 
The most important debates were to take place in the 
hall which surmounts the fore-court of the basilica, and 
which serves on Holy Thursday for the ceremony of 
the Supper. It seems that this project has been 
modified, and that they would, as far as possible, in- 
troduce unity of place into the sessions. 

Firemen watch constantly over the safety of the 
inclosure of the Council, to prevent any misdeed by 
the party of action, to whom, rightly or wrongly, is 
attributed the criminal intention of burning the 
estrades and the seats of the fathers. 



160 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

In all probability, the public will not be admitted 
to the circle of the Council ; but exceptions will be 
made for some distinguished persons who will be 
authorized to be present at its solemn sessions. Yet 
it is said that, during these, the two leaves of the 
large door will remain open, and that from the thresh- 
old of the inclosure people may enjoya glimpse of the 
venerable Areopagus. 

The magnificent carpet which will completely 
cover the floor of the Chapel of Saints Processus and 
Martinien, itself vaster than many a cathedral, is said 
to be a gift of the King of Prussia. This monarch, 
having learned that the Holy Father desired to pay 
little by little the great sum which the carpet costs, 
believed it a duty, though a Protestant, to come to 
his aid in this pinch. 

It has been decided that the approaching Council 
shall bear the name of the " First (Ecumenical Council 
of the Vatican." On the 14th of October the corner- 
stone of a monument (of which I have already spoken) 
intended to perpetuate its memory was laid. This 
monument will rise on Mount Janiculum, at the 
center of the platform that extends before the Church 
of Saint Peter in Montorio, built on the spot where 
the Prince of the Apostles was crucified. Its base 
will be hexagonal, and on five of its faces will 
present bas-reliefs, representing the five sections of 
the earth, indicated by allegorical figures holding 
standards, on which the labarum floats. The sixth 
face, adorned with the arms of Pius IX., will bear 
the dates of the opening and the close of the Council. 
Such is the pedestal on which will be erected the 
magnificent column of African marble, discovered in 
the excavations of the Emporium Roman um. A 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 161 

contemporary inscription indicates that this column 
was intended for Nero. The ceremony of laying the 
corner-stone was performed by Cardinal Joseph Ber- 
ardi, Minister of Public Works and Commerce. 

A special committee, composed of prelates who 
speak foreign languages, is charged with the recep- 
tion and lodging of the bishops quietly, and as fast 
as they arrive at Eome. A special arrangement has 
been made for the reception of the bishops. The 
authorities of Civita Vecchia, Orta and Ceprano, 
have orders to telegraph to Monsignore Seraiini as 
soon as one of them presents himself on the frontiers. 
On the arrival of the train at Eome a committee 
takes care to have as many carriages at the railway 
station as there are bishops designated by the tele- 
graph. 

More than one hundred and forty bishops have 
already asked entertainment at the expense of the 
Pope. New demands of this nature are daily made. 
Every bishop, provided he expresses the wish, is en- 
titled to the hospitality of the Holy Father for him- 
self, his secretary, and a servant. 

The lodgings which have been prepared by order 
of the Pope for the fathers of the Council are quite 
numerous, and it would be impossible to give their 
address in detail. It will suffice to indicate those 
which axe found in the convents of the Dominicans 
on the Piazza di Minerva ; of the Lazarists on the 
Piazza di Monte-Citoris ; of the Oblates of Tor di 
Specchi at the foot of the Capitolinus ; of the Fran- 
ciscans at Saint Peter's in Montorio ; in the Cortoni 
Palace at the foot of the Aventine ; in the Senni 
Palace at San Celso ; in the Chapter-houses of Saint 

Peter and Saint Mary the Greater. In the large 

11 



162 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

house belonging to the canons of Saint Peter, neat 
Saint Martha's, more than forty bishops will be 
lodged together. They will have very convenient, 
and even comfortable, apartments, and a vast hall 
where they will take their meals in common. They 
have transported large quantities of chairs, carpets, 
mattresses, hangings, etc, from Marseilles to furnish 
all these lodgings. 

Prince Alexander Torlonia has put at the disposal 
of the Pope for the bishops the great and splendid 
palace built by Raphael opposite the Church of Scos- 
sacavalli, which enjoys the advantage of being only a 
few steps from Saint Peter's. Prince Borghese and 
Prince Massimo delle Colonne have followed the ex- 
ample of the celebrated banker by opening their pal- 
aces to the venerable guests of Pome. A French 
gentleman living at Rome has assumed the main- 
tenance of a bishop till the Council closes. 

The Pope desires that the bishops, as supreme 
judges in questions of faith, representatives of na- 
tions, and interpreters of the Holy Ghost, should be 
received with the highest honors. 

As to the ceremonial of the Council, it is the ob- 
ject of the constant study of a special committee, 
which holds its sessions now at the house of Cardinal 
Patrizi, its president, now with Monsignore Ferrari, 
inspector of apostolical ceremonies. As there is nec- 
essarily a lack of traditions about ceremonies that 
have not been repeated for three hundred years, the 
committee lias had much labor in searching and ran- 
sacking old parchments and dusty folios in order to 
obtain practical rules. 

They have striven to define the question of pre- 
cedence as exactly as possible. It will be generally 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 163 

regulated, not according to the degree occupied by 
the different dioceses of Catholicism in the hierarchy 
of the Church universal, but according to the senior- 
ity of the precognition of each of the members of the 
episcopate in the category to which he belongs. These 
categories are five in number — Patriarchs, Primates, 
Archbishops, diocesan or effective Bishops, Archbish- 
ops, and Bishops in jpartibus infidelium. 

Further, and with a view to simplify the question 
of etiquette, the Holy Father has decided that all 
bishops taking part in the Council shall be named 
assistants of the Pontifical throne. 

The cardinals, in their quality of counselors of the 
sovereign Pontiff, candidates for the chair of Saint 
Peter, and members of the supreme senate of the 
Church, form the immediate surrounding of the Pope, 
and consequently have precedence of all other eccle- 
siastical dignitaries. 

The question of the admission of Abbes, called 
Nullius, and of the Generals of Orders, has been set- 
tled in the affirmative, agreeably to the traditions of 
the Council of Trent. 

The Holy Father is about to nominate four Cardi- 
nal Legates to represent himself in the sessions of the 
venerable Assembly whenever he shall not preside in 
person. Two of these Apostolic Legates will be 
Cardinal Reisach and Cardinal Bilio, who is supposed 
to have been the principal author of the Syllabus. 

Monseigneur Fessler, Bishop of Saint Ploten, Secre- 
tary General of the Council, is exceedingly active. 
He is studying all the innumerable questions that 
the preparatory committees, forming separate bodies, 
each following its own specialty, have separately 
elaborated. Besides the General Secretarv, other 



364 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

secretaries, chosen from the members of the commit- 
tees of the Council, are soon to be nominated. 

Cardinal Reisach, director of the special com- 
mittee charged to elaborate the matter of the po- 
litico-religious questions which are to be debated 
in the universal Assembly, has fallen sick, and been 
obliged, according to the prescriptions of his physic 
cians, to travel for his health. He is temporarily re- 
placed by Cardinal Capalti, an old secretary of the 
Propaganda. 

The greatest secrecy rests on these preparatory 
labors, and, apart from a few questions, we obtain 
only imperfect information, incomplete news, and 
vague rumors. 

When the preparatory committees are dissolved, 
there will only remain a certain number of Italian 
and foreign prelates at the disposal of the Holy 
Father for the studies which he may see fit to require 
of them. The preliminary labors are completely 
finished, and it is said that they are drawing up this 
very moment the formulas of the decisions and decrees 
which will be presented to the Council. 

It is claimed that the most complete freedom will 
reign in the debates of the assembly, and that the 
Pope himself quite recently said to a great personage 
that he desired the Bishops to have full opportunity 
to display all their ideas and sentiments, and that 
the questions which should not be determined on 
with unanimity, or which should not have at least a 
striking majority in their favor, should be dismissed 
ad acta. The multitude of questions of every kind 
requiring solution is so great, that Monsignore Gion- 
nelli, Secretary of the Permanent Congregation of 
the Council, as well as of the Committee of Cardinals. 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 165 

designated for the revision of all their labors, lately 
said that it was not even possible for so many sub- 
jects to be exhausted in a short time. 

It is not yet known what mode of publicity will 
be adopted by the Council to keep Catholicism in- 
formed of what passes in its bosom. Some would 
have the official "Journal of Home" publish daily re- 
ports of the sessions and the decrees of the assembly, 
as is done in secular parliaments ; others propose that 
the Civiltd CattoMca, becoming the official organ of 
the Council, should appear more frequently, and 
give, with a periodical account of the debates, the 
decisions proclaimed ; finally, others think that the 
secrecy which has presided over the preparatory la- 
bors ought also to surround the Council, and that 
only at its close should an official report of it be 
published. 

A practical question, which does not fail to prove 
very embarrassing, is that of the reproduction of the 
debates by stenography. But one language indeed 
will there be spoken, the sacred tongue, ecclesiasti- 
cal Latin ; but the Tower of Babel will nevertheless 
assert its rights through the different manner in 
which the Latin is pronounced. The distance is 
great from the English to the Italian pronunciation ; 
it needs well-trained ears to recognize the same 
word on the more or less closed lips of the Anglo- 
Saxon and in the sonorous articulation of a man from 
the South. They intend, likewise, to have stenog- 
raphers of the diverse nations, but these will not en- 
able the honorable orators to understand each other. 
There will be, then, rather successive monologues 
than a contradictory debate. This will not greatly 
displease the Roman managers, who would gladly 



166 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

have the Council content itself with their Latin, 
laying the accent on certain well-known words, the 
infallibility of the Pope and the divinity of the 
Yirgin. 

Let us now take account of much more important 
differences than those of Latin pronunciation, and 
which, awaiting the issue of the Council, freely show 
themselves. Let us consider, in turn, the various 
nationalities which will be represented, and inquire 
what are the dispositions which animate each of them. 
We shall thus see that there is cause to complete the 
famous comparison of the seamless coat, which they 
have tried to make an image of Catholic unity, and 
add that it is as variegated as Joseph's coat. 

Let us begin with our French Bishops, who for 
some days have been flowing into the Eternal City ; 
for the moment, I will deal only with ideas and not 
with individuals, to whom I shall subsequently come. 
It is certain that a majority of these Bishops come 
with the most ardent Ultramontane dispositions; 
many of them have expressed these opinions in furious 
pastoral letters on occasion of the book of Mon- 
seigneur Maret against the infallibility of the Holy 
Father. For some days the journals have been inun- 
dated with their prose, that heavy episcopal prose, 
which contrives to be at once without nerve and 
without moderation — soft and violent as the impotent 
anger of old age. Some of them made a very pomp- 
ous scene before leaving their dioceses ; they assem- 
bled their clergy to address them in pathetic farewells, 
as though they were setting off on the most danger- 
ous missions, while these courageous confessors only set 
out to cast down in their own persons the ancient 
rights of the episcopate before the Roman idol. The 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 167 

priests who are absolutely dependent on them — for 
the priesthood is as much abased before the epis- 
copacy as the episcopacy before the Holy See — these 
priests, who are merely their creatures, pretended to 
charge them with a solemn mission, by urging them 
on in their own Ultramontane direction. Further, 
many of these priests have followed them to Rome ; 
permission has been very freely granted them to 
remain. 

A considerable number of French curates and 
monks are here, mostly fanatics in Ultramontanism, 
and impatient to kiss the dust under the feet of the 
Great Pontiff. They will not sit in the high Assem- 
bly, but they will encircle its debates ; they will con- 
tribute to form an atmosphere of ardent enthusiasm 
to weigh upon and envelope the Council. 

I understand very well then why the bishops 
leave so many parishes deprived, for the moment, of 
their regular pastors ; in the great spectacle which is 
preparing, they are to play the part of the chorus in 
the antique tragedies, which, in the minds of the 
authors, gave their true signification. A few bishops 
only are exceptions ; the Archbishop of Paris at the 
head, and the Bishop of Orleans, who has just pub- 
lished a new circular w T herein he pronounces with 
some energy against the timeliness of the new dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception. The manifesto of 
the Correspondant) the organ of Liberal Catholicism, 
has been published as a pamphlet since I mentioned 
it to you ; you know that it is from the incisive pen 
of Prince Albert de Broglie, and that, through much 
circumlocution and laudation of the Holy Father, its 
conclusion is that of the Bishop of Orleans. The 
Oorresponddnt has acted like Pius IX., it too has set 



168 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

up its column commemorative of the Council, and 
engraved on it the idea which it hopes to see triumph 
in the high Assembly. It can already anticipate 
that it will have singularly to abate its triumph, for 
its manifesto has been the object of the most violent 
attacks ; it has been abused by the Univers as an 
academician, a philosopher — which, for that devout 
journal, is the highest abuse — and denounced as a 
violent transporter into the religious domain of- that 
abominable parliamentary rule which it incessantly 
cries up in the political sphere. The Covrespondant 
will be at the Council in the person of Monseigneur 
Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orleans, and he will there 
reveal the measure of his influence and his courage. 
The Church of Paris numbers many enlightened and 
learned priests, at once pious and liberal. I will cite 
in the first rank the Abbe Martin Noirlieu, curate 
of the Church of Saint Louis d'Antin — a venerable 
old man, who is an heir of the noble spirit of Port 
Royal — who beholds Ultramontane follies with a 
grief which he openly expresses, and who ardently 
desires the triumph of the Gallican tendency over 
Romish novelties. I have often met young priests 
full of talent and piety at his residence, who spoke 
with indignation of the paths into which Jesuitism 
was plunging the Church. Among laymen, I will 
mention M. Garcin de Tassy, a member of the Insti- 
tute, and Professor of Oriental Languages, who has 
never ceased to protest against Ultramontanism w T ith 
an energy which age does not enfeeble. These repre- 
sentatives of a profoundly liberal and Christian Gal- 
licism will not be in Rome, but their worth is known 
there; they are dreaded, and the thought of them 
may well prove a weight in the balance, at the de- 



Home, Italy, akd the Council. 169 

cisive hour, in preventing the triumph of the papal 
party. 

From France let us pass to the fathers of the Coun- 
cil who will come hither to represent the great 
Anglo-Saxon race. Of your American Bishops I can 
tell you nothing which you do not know better than 
I. It is claimed that Ultramontanism counts many 
a convert among them within a few years, but there 
is one point on which they are more rebellious to 
Romish influence, namely, the question of the union 
of the temporal with the spiritual power; because 
they know by experience the value of the opposite 
policy to the Church — what dignity, what power she 
finds in it. Perhaps it will seem hard to them to say, 
Truth on that side of the Atlantic, hid error on this. 

The Canadian Bishop, who was one of the first to 
arrive in Rome, is, on the other hand, noted for his 
enthusiasm for the Pontifical army. He has addressed 
the Zouaves furnished by his diocese in a discourse 
quite to the taste of the Roman leaders. The Irish 
episcopate naturally has at heart all the passions 
which long oppression produces. It will beware of 
dwelling on the great act of liberation which England 
has just accomplished in behalf of Ireland, because 
that act is, after all, a step toward the separation of 
Church and State ; and because, if they like its favora- 
ble consequences for Catholicism at Rome, they blame 
its principle. They even openly expressed that blame 
on occasion of the memorable debates in the House 
of Commons, whence the law of separation pro- 
ceeded, which will, more than any other measure, im- 
mortalize the name of Gladstone. The Irish clergy 
belongs body and soul to the Papacy ; they are 
counted on as a picked corps which is to be wielded 



170 Rome, Italy, and the Council 



decisively in critical moments. They count no less 
on the clergy of Great Britain and Archbishop Man- 
ning. He has all the zeal and fire of neophytes, pre- 
cisely because he is a recruit from the Protestant 
camp. The proselyting activity which Catholicism 
has exercised in England for the last thirty years has 
been great, though it has been exaggerated. It has 
revealed all the inconsistencies of the Episcopal 
Church, which, by the way in which it exalts the 
traditional and sacerdotal* element, lays a well-con- 
structed bridge between Westminster and the 
Church of Rome. Puseyism and Ritualism, which 
are its most authentic form, are already half Cath- 
olic ; they will not miss the crown of the edifice, 
w T hich is the Papacy, and most of the adepts of Pusey 
do not consent, like their master, to leave the work 
unfinished. The doctrinal shock, also, which was 
produced in the Anglican Church by The Essays and 
Reviews, and of which the publications of Bishop 
Colenso are the gravest symptom, has disgusted many 
minds with her institutions ; especially when it has 
been so evident that the institutions of Anglicanism 
w r ould not permit the removal of that peril, and 
that doctrinal suits brought before the Court of the 
Queen's Bench would come to no issue, for the reason 
that questions of religious conviction can never be 
put on the same footing with questions of procedure 
stifled under papers and parchments. Hence, while 
the Low Church, which is scarcely Episcopal, has 
grown considerably, Catholicism has also made im- 
portant conquests among timid minds that feel the 
need of a tangible authority. It is also more or less 
becoming an affair of fashion and custom, since some 
of the first families in the aristocracy have allowed 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 171 

themselves to be won by it. But it is a long way 
from this fact to the belief that England therefore runs 
the risk of abandoning the Reformation. She will 
neither deny her genius nor her grandeur; the heart 
of her people is invincibly Protestant. The epis- 
copal form will probably perish, but only to assure the 
triumph of a more consistent Protestantism, better 
founded on its immortal principles and clear of any 
bond with the State. But let us return to the En- 
glish Catholic episcopacy. Archbishop Manning has 
also published his pastoral letter, which is a fervent 
glorification of the Papacy and the author's pledge 
to sustain it in all its usurpations, which, in his eyes, 
are assertions of the most legitimate rights. The 
English priests who are in Rome will sustain him 
with all their energy; they will blow up the Ultra- 
montane flame, should it chance to languish. One 
of the most distinguished members of the clergy of 
Great Britain, Dr. Newman, will have no voice in 
the Council. He does not belong to the same tend- 
ency. He is a man of great learning, of a distin- 
guished and liberal mind, which does not incline to 
exaggerations ; unhappily he does not openly combat 
them ; he is timid and silent when he should speak. 
He will not check his brethren who will be able to 
give themselves up to all the heat of their fanaticism. 
Belgium will not make herself heard in discordant 
words. She is a nursery of Pontifical zouaves, and 
docile priests, who are spiritual zouaves ; habituated 
to struggle against the Belgian Liberals, they have 
learned in this conflict to use the weapons of discus- 
sion, though their journalists do not forget those poi- 
soned arrows of calumny with which the arsenal of 
the Jesuits is ever well stored. Their chief is Mon- 



172 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

signore Deschamps, the Archbishop of Malines, who 
was one of the first to proclaim the necessity of for- 
mulating the dogma of the infallibility of the Holy 
Father — this act secured him a brief of approval. 
This prelate has good eyes to discover in history what 
science has never been able to detect there, to wit, 
the regular play of the Pontifical absolutism from 
apostolical times. He will certainly be one of the 
chiefs of the right wing of the Council, and one of its 
champions should there be any serious discussion. 

If we come to Germany, the spectacle is quite dif- 
ferent, at least as we approach the North. The Aus- 
trian episcopate signed the Concordat which was so 
dearly paid for at Sadowa, and which conducted the 
country quite gently to an incurable senility. The 
prelates who put their hands to that odious treaty, 
through which they hoped to tyrannize quite at ease 
over the public mind, and who sustained with impru- 
dent zeal the indignant protestations of the Romish 
Court against civil marriage and lay education, also 
form a part of the picked battalion of the Gesu. 
Several of these are looked on as martyrs, because 
they have incurred some slight penalties for having 
resisted the most righteous laws of their country. 
But they are merely the martyrs of their folly, and it 
will be hard for them, despite the desires they may 
have, to produce in the Council of the Vatican the 
effect which those old confessors produced who, at 
Nice, bore the scars of the Diocletian persecution. 
In Bavaria, Prussia, and the other countries of Ger- 
many, Catholicism bears a very different character. 
It has not breathed with impunity the air of scientific 
freedom which breathes over the German Univer- 
sities; it has become learned in its turn, and has 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 173 

enriched science with remarkable works. The illus- 
trious Mohler, author of the best Catholic work on 
Symbolics, had visibly undergone the influence of 
Schleiermacher. Daily contact with German science 
cannot fail to place transrhenish Catholicism in 
quite a special situation, so long as it does not deny 
its nationality and remains faithful to the genius of 
its race. No doubt TJltramontanism also has adher- 
ents in Germany ; they have even held a very spirited 
meeting in which priests and laymen echoed the 
theories of the Encyclical; but the most eminent 
members of the German clergy were absent from that 
rather noisy than intelligent gathering whose impor- 
tance finally was small. The manifestations of Lib- 
eral Catholicism have been far more notable. I pass 
rapidly over those already known to every body. I 
name, for the sake of memory and completeness in 
this important matter, the manifesto of the German 
Catholics of Rhenish Prussia, published in the month 
of July, in which they very distinctly protested 
against Romish tendencies, against the union of the 
two powers, and quite particularly against that Con- 
gregation of the Index, which pretends to regulate 
the reading of all the faithful, and consequently to 
trace out the limits of contemporary science. This 
manifesto has been completed by a very solid book 
which demonstrates historically how much the actual 
pretensions of the Papacy lack foundation, and how 
questionable are the proofs it invokes. The Letters of 
Janus are more than a party programme ; they are 
a complete treatise of compact and irresistible argu- 
mentation which it will be easier to condemn than to 
refute. A far bolder work has just appeared in Ger- 
many ; this emanates from the most advanced wing 



174 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

of the same party. It is not a simple protest, but a very 
precise demand of the reforms desirable in the Church, 
and which the Council ought to proclaim in order to 
serve her true interests. The bare title of this work 
reveals its scope ; it runs thus : Reform of the Rom- 
ish Church in its Head and in its Members — The 
Task of the Approaching Council. The first reform 
required is the decentralization of the Churches by 
the weakening of the bond which binds them to the 
Papacy, so that each may have, as in the past, its 
own physiognomy. Secondly, they should abolish the 
exaggerated matrimonial impediments which intro- 
duce the Pontifical power to so many family firesides. 
Those perpetual vows which are rash engagements 
should be abolished. Let the national tongue of 
every people replace a dead language in the celebra- 
tion of worship. Give laymen a share in the admin- 
istration of the Church. Let clerical education be 
completely renewed; and finally, let the Church 
abandon forever all the theocratic elements contained 
in her present rule. Such are the desires expressed 
in this work, which speaks with all skillful precau- 
tions and all the reserve of ecclesiastical language. 
This certainly is a sign of the times. 

Another equal sign is a pamphlet against the In- 
fallibility of the Pope, which has just appeared at 
Ratisbon. It bears the name of no author, but all 
its readers name an illustrious theologian of Munich, 
the learned Dollinger, who really was the inspirer 
of the German Catholic manifesto of Bonn and 
of the Letters of Janus. Contemporary Catholicism 
lias no more distinguished master. His history of the 
preparation for Christianity in the bosom of Pagan- 
ism is a vast monument of solid learning, entirely 



EomEj Italy, and the Council. 175 

faithful to the rigorous methods of contemporary 
criticism. His book on the temporal Papacy is a 
masterpiece of impartiality; he proves in the most 
peremptory way that it is not of divine origin, that 
it is the product of a purely human history, and that 
nothing is more senseless than to make the destinies 
of Christianity depend on that. He has also written a 
book to refute the famous work of Bunsen on Callis- 
tus and Saint Hippolytus, a book which maintains 
him in Catholic tradition, and prevents his being 
ranked with schismatics when he interferes with the 
inward debates of the Church, as he is now doing 
with so much learning, with, an influence so legiti- 
mately acquired, and with a manly and precise style 
w T hich avoids the endless windings of German periods. 
This time he desired to write in a language more 
generally known than his own, and he has chosen the 
French. I must give you a rapid analysis of this re- 
markable work, w T hich will be a capital document in 
the important cause to be pleaded in Rome, a cause 
which would surely be carried in the interest of Dol- 
linger were not the judges prejudiced, and did they 
w-eigh votes instead of counting them. You will re- 
mark that all the arguments presented against Infalli- 
bility bear with equal force against the Immaculate 
Conception. 

The pamphlet begins thus : " In past ages the 
Church has always rejected novelties by dwelling 
particularly on the antiquity and immutability of her 
dogmas. When we can prove of any dogma that it 
was unknown for some centuries, that it did not arise 
till some definite epoch, or that it was not professed 
by the entire Church, and that it is not contained 
potentially, as logicians say, as a logical, inevitable, 



176 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

necessary consequence in other dogmas, then that doc- 
trine is adjudged from the Catholic stand-point; it 
bears the brand of illegitimacy on its brow; it should 
not and cannot be elevated to the dignity of an arti- 
cle of faith. Now all these features are combined in 
the notion of the Papal Infallibility." Such is the 
theme to be argued. The learned author asks them to 
produce some text from one of the Fathers that con- 
cludes in favor of that Infallibility ; he easily shows 
that those which the Jesuit theologians oppose to him 
are audacious falsifications of citations detached from 
their context, and that partisan spirit has done them 
violence. He says that " the history of the Catholic 
Church during its first thousand years must of neces- 
sity be an insoluble enigma for all the partisans of 
Papal Infallibility. They are not the least in the 
world able to explain the long duration, the profound 
and internal complication, and, in a word, the entire 
series of the great contests on revealed dogmas." In 
fact, how can we conceive of so many debates, so 
many folios, and such care to understand each other 
well on doctrine, if they already possessed an infal- 
lible oracle who had only to open his mouth that all 
difficulties might vanish? Heavenly light illuminate 
all the problems of Christian metaphysics and prac- 
tice ! Whence comes it, then, that in all great dog- 
matic contests they have hastened to convoke a 
Council and appeal to the Church in its totality? 
Why did Pope Leo trample under foot his own rights 
by declaring it necessary to convoke an (Ecumenical 
Council, and how strange the scruple which seized 
on Pope Siricus that he should excuse himself for not 
being able without such a Council to give a decision 
on a disputed doctrinal question? Cardinal Orsi 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 177 

was truly right, from the stand-point of the partisans 
of infallibility, in complaining of "the useless fracas 
made by the convocation of Councils," and casting 
the blame of it on the emperors. 

Approaching the question of principle, the learned 
author then shows that it is to the Church as a whole, 
and to her alone, as well in her usual condition as in 
her representation by a Council, that infallibility, that 
is, divine protection and light, is promised. In proof, 
he invokes the first Council, that of Jerusalem, where 
nothing was decided by an authoritive decision of 
Saint Peter, but where the discussion was entirely 
free, and James the Lord's brother exercised a pre- 
ponderating influence. The vote took place in the 
name of all. The first great Councils dispensed en- 
tirely with Papal confirmations, witness that of Nice 
and the second (Ecumenical Council of Constanti- 
nople, whose decisions had the force of law without 
any mention being made of the Holy Father. The 
texts of the Gospels on which the partisans of infal- 
libility rest are here interpreted with a very loyal 
exegesis. It is well known that they cite mainly the 
prayer of Christ for Peter, (Luke xii, 32,) that his 
faith fail not, joined with the exhortation which the 
Lord adds to it, that, after his own conversion, he 
should strengthen his brethren. But this interpreta- 
tion will not bear serious examination. Particularly 
is it in flagrant contradiction with the constant tra- 
dition of the Church for the first seven centuries, 
since none of the Fathers of the Church understood 
the passage in that sense. All who expounded it, 
like Cyprian, Hilary, John Chrysostom, recognized 
that the only question was of the individual virtue of 

his faith, and not of an inability to err in doctrinal 

12 



178 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

decisions. It was Pope Agatho who first essayed in 
the year 680 to deduce from this passage the proof of 
a prerogative granted to the Roman See, but he ex- 
cused himself by declaring that great ignorance in 
theological matters then reigned at Rome. Have the 
Bishops who maintain the opinion of Agatho forgot- 
ten the oath which they take in their ordination, 
agreeably to the so-called Confession of Pius IV. and 
an explicit canon of the Council of Trent, (Session 
IV,) by which the Catholic Christian is referred to 
the consent of the Fathers of the Church, and therefore 
of the firsb six centuries, in the interpretation of the 
Holy Scriptures? Hence they commit a species of 
perjury by seeking to introduce a comment which is 
in flagrant contradiction with all primitive Christi- 
anity. Finally, historical facts cast decisive light on 
this question. If it were true that the privilege of 
doctrinal infallibility had been granted by Jesus Christ 
to the Papacy in the person of Saint Peter, it would 
be necessary to show that for eighteen hundred years 
never had a Pope erred in doctrine. The contrary is 
far too palpable. This assertion would not be true 
even in regard to Saint Peter, since at Antioch, far 
from strengthening his brethren, he rather led their 
faith astray by his hypocrisy, as Saint Paul was obliged 
to tell him. If Zosimus approved a profession of faith 
which denied original sin, if Liberius subscribed an 
Arian formula, if Honorius, by giving his approbation 
to an erroneous formula, aided the spread of the her- 
esy of the Monothelites, as an (Ecumenical Council 
judged — and how many similar facts might not be add- 
ed — nobody will be able to recognize in these diverse 
errors the fulfilling of the command to "strengthen 
the brethren in the faith." Here, indeed, is a club- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 179 

stroke, from which the doctrine of infallibility will 
find it hard to recover. The author justly calls our 
attention to the fact, that if thev would found it 
on the application of the words of Jesus Christ to 
the person of Saint Peter and his successors, there is 
no good reason for limiting it to the public declara- 
tions of the Holy Father; lie is himself the pure and 
leaping spring of doctrinal truth, and that spring 
flows whenever he opens his mouth. Returning to 
the testimony of the Fathers, the author shows in 
peremptory style that when Saint Cyprian, with the 
w r hole African Church, refused to submit t'o the decis- 
ions of the Bishop of Rome on the question of bap- 
tism administered by heretics, he thereby showed 
w T hat he thought of the infallibility of the Papacy. 
Saint Augustine, though differing from him on the 
value of baptism conferred by heretics, fully justified 
his ecclesiastical stand-point, for he declared that he 
was not bound to adopt the view r of Pope Stephen. 
If it be pretended that the Popes can be judged by 
nobody, what shall we do with the (Ecumenical 
Councils of Basle and Constance, which very clearly 
proclaimed the contrary doctrine, and affirmed the 
superiority of the General Council to any Pope. 
Further, Pope Martin declared in an express bull 
that they who reject the decisions of the Council of 
Constance are guilty of heresy. 

The author next approaches a series of considera- 
tions whose importance in the present circumstances 
of society w 7 ill escape none. If the Papacj 7 has al- 
ways been infallible, then we must accept as true, and 
seek to exalt as salutary, all its political and social 
declarations. There is no principle which the popes 
have more loudly proclaimed than the duty of the 



180 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

prince to use his sword in the violent suppression of 
heresy. Once proclaim the dogma of Papal infalli- 
bility and it will follow that this doctrine must pass 
for a divine truth, according to which Catholic 
states will be bound in conscience not to allow 
the profession of any other religion than Catholicism. 
More than fifty popes have called the Inquisition the 
Holy Office, and popes have lauded it on occasion of 
the canonization of certain Inquisitors. For centuries 
they have also sanctioned the rule that all who obsti- 
nately depart from a single article of the faith should 
be punished with capital punishment. If they pro- 
claim the infallibility of the Papacy, it will be forbid- 
den any Catholic to say or think that the institution of 
the Inquisition was a grave error. It would be 
necessary to pronounce an absolute divorce from 
modern society and plead against the verdict of con- 
science. The doctrine of Gregory VII. on the right of 
the Papacy to depose sovereigns at will, must be 
made an article of faith. 

The gravity of the silence observed by the Council 
of Trent in this matter cannot be overlooked. It is 
certain that the question was there discussed and con- 
tested. By not pronouncing, they showed clearly that 
it was considered indifferent to the faith. The opinion 
of infallibility has been able to gain ground only 
through constraint and violence. In Italy, Spain, 
and Portugal, the Inquisition stifled all other instruc- 
tion. Similar violence occurred in the great corpo- 
rations of the Church, in the Religious Orders. In 
this regard, the Jesuits have wielded the most des- 
potic pressure, and have caused all works to be put in 
the Index which submitted that opinion to a scientific 
examination. Now where freedom to instruct has 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 181 

been refused there can be no talk of the agreement 
of the Church, {Concensus Eeclesice;) the word con- 
sent excluding in advance all ideas of constraint. 
Compare the theologians who have combated Papal 
infallibility with its furious advocates. On the one 
hand we have Bossuet, the learned Benedictines of 
Saint Maur, all the German Catholic theologians of 
any worth ; on the other may be arranged Torque- 
mada, Cajetan, Baronius, Bellarmine, Orsi, all the Car- 
dinals; then the Generals of Orders resident in Borne, 
and above all, the entire Gesu. The theologians of 
the Roman court have not feared to make use of con- 
troverted documents and forgeries to stay up their 
position. They have incessantly invoked the Decre- 
tals of Isidore, a scandalous historical fraud, and 
forged texts of the Greek Fathers. They do not trouble 
themselves with the historical discoveries which 
brought those audacious falsifications fully to light ; 
they use them like the words of the Gospel. In the 
last works published by this school w r e find all this 
apocryphal rubbish — witness the books of Neutra 
Roskowani; of the Jesuit Weninger, who has written 
especially for the Catholic clergy of the United States, 
who has the face to feign a history of the Council of 
Nice to produce the belief that the authority of the 
Pope was regarded as superior to that of the Council. 
The same reproach may be addressed to the treatise 
of Bouix on the Pope and to the little work of Arch- 
bishop Deschamps of Malines. 

Let us cite the conclusion of this pamphlet, whose 
importance is plain to all. 

" In the supposed case [namely, of the adoption 
of the infallibility dogma] an unequaled grip upon 
us would be given, and a vast advantage to separatist 



182 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Churches, as well the Greco-Russian and Oriental as 
the Protestant. There is every appearance that the 
whole controversy, as hitherto conducted against the 
Catholic Church and doctrine, will be concentrated 
more and more on this sole doctrine, which would then 
have become in fact the test of a standing or falling 
Church, in which contest her adversaries would find 
the most efficacious arms, the most conclusive argu- 
ments in the very bosom of the Catholic Church herself, 
in the writings of her greatest and most celebrated theo- 
logians, and in the controversialists by whom they 
were formerly overwhelmed. What reply will the 
defenders of the Church have to make when told that, 
for more than eighteen hundred years, this doctrine 
was first unknown, and then rejected and refuted by 
a considerable part of the Church, and that precisely 
the most learned part ; that the most respectable 
scientific corporations of the Church, like the Univer- 
sity of Paris, have taught the contrary doctrine 
through four entire centuries ? What will they have to 
answer, finally, when their adversaries shall refer them 
to the writings of Bossuet, Fleury, Noel Alexandre, and 
so many others of equal or nearly equal weight ? Jt 
would be needful in that case to gradually give quite 
another form to the doctrine concerning the Church, 
and particularly to change entirely our instruction in 
regard to the conditions and distinctive characters of 
a Church dogma or article of faith. 

The enterprise of proclaiming the hypothesis of the 
Papal infallibility as a dogma of the Church would, 
among other consequences, have that of enfeebling 
the authority of the Church in an incalculable degree. 
For nothing can be more harmful to the authority 
of the Church in the eyes of the faithful, as well as 



Rome, Italy, akd the Council. 1S3 

in those of strangers, than the sight of a doctrine 
forming henceforth a part of the teaching of the 
Church, and proved by means, or at least by the aid 
of, designedly-invented, long-continned, and sustained 
fictions. Now it is clear and indisputable that such is 
the case with the doctrine of Papal infallibility. The 
fictions by whose aid the way has been prepared for 
this opinion, recommended and introduced at last into 
scholastic theology and into the canon law, begin 
in the sixth and were continued down to the thir- 
teenth century; and Thomas Aquinas himself, w T hose 
authority has had so decisive an influence in propa- 
gating and strengthening the opinion of the infalli- 
bility of the teachings and the decrees which ema- 
nate from the See of Rome, was deceived by testi- 
monies invented willfully, and attributed to the Greek 
Church." 

I have aimed to make you acquainted with this 
courageous plea of a truly self-consistent liberal 
Catholicism, which closes without that promise of 
cringing and absolute submission which is the binding 
conclusion of the most independent episcopal circulars. 
At Rome, doubtless, they will disdainfully pass over 
these worthy pages and peremptory arguments ; ac- 
cording to the stinging saying of Pascal, they will 
bring on monks in place of reasons, in order to finish 
up every thing by a majority vote. Instead of monks, 
they have all those fine bishops of the East whose 
long white beards are as venerable as their minds are 
ignorant; they have a good number of bishops in 
partibus who will be in the Council what chamber- 
lains are in our assemblies; they will have the entire 
Italian clergy, who, with rare exceptions, are furious 
at the sale of their estates ; they will have, besides 3 



184 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

all the throng of the Roman Monsignori. Yet it is 
possible that they may not dare to formulate the 
dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, and that they 
may avoid extremes by an equivocation sufficiently 
neutralized by the recent proclamation of the doc- 
trine of the immaculate conception. But in my 
next letter I will resume the chapter of hypotheses in 
speaking of the future heroes of the Council — those 
who will be its orchestral leaders. 

E. de Pkessense. 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 185 



LETTER VIII. 

Leading Actors in the Council — The Absentees — The Pope — Anto- 
nelli — Bishop Tosti — Archbishop Manning — Bishop Hoefele — - 
Bishop Hanneberger — Cardinals Donnet and Bonnechose — Bishop 
Plantier — The Bishop of La Rochelle — Bishop Dupanloup — Arch- 
bishop Darboy — Louis Venillot, the Lay Delegate — Anticipations 
in Liberal Circles. 

Rome, November, 1869. 

After conversing with you on the diverse tenden- 
cies which will encounter each other in the Council 
and surely clash if there be serious debate, I must 
now draw your attention to the persons who will 
figure there in the front rank. We know the subject 
of the action or drama ; let us now try to obtain an 
idea of the actors who will play its principal parts. 

There are several of these whom the eye will seek 
in vain, and who will shine there by their absence : 
these are the chiefs of countries formerly submissive 
entirely to Catholicism, and who by their embassa- 
dors held a place of honor. People remember that 
at the Council of Trent the Legates of Rome con- 
stantly turned an uneasy eye toward the seat whence 
the Spanish embassador often set up claims full of 
pride, and toward that wliere the French embassador 
expressed with much grace, but firmly, the opposi- 
tion and the reserves of his court. The importance 
of the intervention of the Catholic Princes in the 
High Assembly depended on the ancient order of 
things, which closely associated politics and religion. 
The Popes claimed that decrees of the Council 



186 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

approved by them should obtain the force of law in 
all countries, and that the civil authorities should sus- 
tain them with all their resources. That class, then, 
could not be uninterested in the resolutions taken in 
the name of the Church, and they had to see that 
these in no way compromised them. This necessity 
of an understanding with the great powers was a 
check on ecclesiastical eccentricities; yet it was not 
always sufficient, since the Kings of France saw in 
the disciplinary measures fixed on by the Council of 
Trent a dangerous encroachment on the rights of the 
crown, and forbade their publication in the kingdom. 
All this is changed to-day; the separation of the 
Church and civil society is every-where begun ; there 
is no State in Europe which follows in the wake of 
the Papacy for its interior organization, and which 
appears disposed to give the force of law to its decis- 
ions. Consequently none is directly interested in 
them ; the Council will have all the more freedom be- 
cause it has less power. Further, some of these powers 
have to look so carefully to their moral credit with 
the people that they dread accepting the least share 
in the exaggerations of the Papacy. The presence 
of their embassadors would, from this stand-point, 
present grave inconveniences for them, since, unable 
to prevent any thing, they would seem to approve 
every thing. Let us not talk of princes called schis- 
matic ; the Emperor of Russia, justly rated at Eome 
for his persecutions of the Polish Catholics — in which, 
note as we pass on, he has merely applied the prin- 
ciples of Eome to Eome — can only look with disdain 
on a Council where the Pope will try to gain a re- 
ligious absolutism which belongs solely to himself as 
the Czar of Holy Eussia and the personification of 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 187 

the Orthodox religion. He knows how recalcitrant 
bishops are made to walk, and how the human con- 
science bows under the heel of his boot. The King 
of Prussia and the Queen of England can see nothing 
more in the Council than the Emperor of Russia ; 
they are both quite decided to respect the liberty of 
their Catholic subjects; that is the proper way to 
avenge the abuse addressed to the religion which 
they profess. 

The Emperor of Austria, since his rupture with 
the Concordat which delivered his equally vast and 
diverse States to the Papal yoke, has had only to 
strengthen his independence toward the Church. He 
knows very well that his embassadors at Rome 
would only receive sharp remonstrances on all reforms 
which have turned on the emancipation of lay society. 
Like his English sister, he depends on a Parliament 
that obeys no countersign, particularly none that 
comes from beyond the mountains. The parliament- 
ary governments would indeed be forced to submit 
any resolutions in which they might take the least 
share to the deliberations of the representatives of the 
nation. Not for a moment could that be allowed. 
As to the King of Italy, he is plum ply excom- 
municated for having taken possession of the 
estates of the Church. In his late illness, this 
excommunication did not keep him from finding, 
like Cavour, a priest to give him the sacraments 
when he thought himself at the point of death. It 
is asserted at Rome that this priest was charged by 
his bishop to first require a promise to restore to the 
Papacy all fraudulently acquired estates — that the 
King gave incontestable signs of penitence — that, 
consequently, much is to be hoped from this provi- 



188 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

dential illness. They also affect to rejoice greatly on 
his recovery, as though he were going to repair many 
iniquities. Those who write these idle tales and 
seem to believe them, forget an Italian proverb that 
says, Passato il dangiere, gabbato il santo — Danger 
over, the saint is set aside. In the day of peril he 
is invoked with the most fervent devotion ; he is 
promised all kinds of offerings : but on the morrow 
they are eager to forget these fine resolutions, and 
the poor saint may drop asleep again in the dust of 
abandonment. Suppose Victor Emmanuel had prom- 
ised all imaginable reparations to the Papacy, we 
may be assured that as soon as he could whistle a 
hunting air he would no longer remember the night- 
mares of his fever. But he promised nothing, because 
he could not promise any thing ; for he well knows 
that he has to deal with a parliament that will not 
jest on these subjects. He now has difficulty enough 
m calming its impatient ardor to take possession of all 
that remains of the Papal States ; he will not risk his 
crown in going backward and undoing the kingdom 
of Italy. He would be perfectly sure, should he 
make the attempt, to join at the Eternal City 
the alienated majesties, and meditate quite at his 
ease on his past plunderings. I do not think him 
of that humor. The momignori will be cheated 
in their felicitations in respect to his recovery, 
winch will not lead to the restoration of an inch 
of territory. 

Italian royalty has even taken its precautions with 
regard to the Council; it declares beforehand in a 
ministerial circular that, while granting full leave to 
the bishops under its jurisdiction to go there, it 
protests in advance against decisions of the High 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 189 

Assembly which may be in conflict with the consti- 
tution and laws of the kingdom. 

It is well known that the Emperor of the French 
is still the Eldest Son of the Church, yet he will be- 
ware of sitting in the Council. He will no more 
occupy a place there than at Saint John de Lateran, 
where he is an Honorary Canon. Yet this question 
was debated seriously in the cabinet. They even 
talked at one time of sending as Extraordinary 
Embassador to the Council, M. Baroche, the old Min- 
ister of Public Worship. But this was renounced for 
the reasons indicated ; it is known that at Rome 
French influence would not weigh a straw on the 
resolutions of the Assembly ; that they would distrust 
whatever came from that quarter ; and that the Extra- 
ordinary Embassador would have the pleasure of 
receiving constant checks. It is in itself disagreeable 
enough to be obliged to mount guard around the 
Council, and be charged to protect, with French bayo- 
nets, deliberations whose clearest result may well be the 
condemnation of all the fundamental principles of our 
social svstem. France will remain then, arms in hand, 

1/ 7 7 

at the door of a Council whose threshold she will not 
cross ; she will be the sentinel of the Holy Father, 
with his Swiss in their yellow array. Admirable 
role, of which she would do wrong to complain ! Is 
there any better suited to mortify pride and lead to 
the practice of humility ? To be sentry and beadle of 
the Yatican in this great solemnity — that must con- 
tent her ambition. Let her smite her breast for all 
her past imprudence, and chiefly for that disorderly 
love of liberty which formerly made her to-day, like 
proud Clovis, burn what she adores. 

I vainly inquire what other sovereigns might well 



190 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

figure in the great spectacle soon to be given. The 
poor Queen of Spain could only bring hither the 
Golden Rose which the Holy Father granted her the 
last year of her sad reign, as a homage, if not to her 
virtues, at least to the energy of her Catholic faith, 
which made her send Bible readers to prison. The 
Spanish Provisional Government is quite devoted to 
the search for that rare bird called a good king, who 
can be made whatever they please. They know, be- 
sides, that the revolution in which they took the lead 
is abhorred and cursed at Rome ; they have such 
great fears of compromising themselves with the 
Papacy that they did not even wish to lend the 
palace of the embassy to the Archbishop of Yalla- 
dolid for his reception as a Cardinal, and that 
ceremony was pitiful; before ten o'clock the argand 
lamps were extinguished. There is, indeed, a royalty 
of the old order present at Rome; unhappily it is a 
royalty without a realm. The poor little King of 
Naples, Francis II., will not leave his Farnese Palace, 
where he is expecting an heir, alas ! without an in- 
heritance, even though he should cause him to have 
all the provinces of the former kingdom of Naples for 
his godfather. He can only offer the Holy Father 
the purity of his absolutist and Catholic orthodoxy; 
but that does not suffice to establish the ancient rule; 
he is only the shade of a dead and buried past, save 
in Rome, where he exists in a mummified state. 

As to your Great Republic, nobody thinks of 
her on this occasion, and nothing does her more 
honor than the universally recognized incompatibil- 
ity between her and any blending of religion and 
politics. 

Having spoken of those who will not be in the 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 191 

Council, let us speak of those who will be present. A 
Jove principium. Let us begin with the god of the 
Catholic Olympus, the venerable and dangerous 
Pius IX. ; one of those men destined sincerely to 
lead the convoy of ancient institutions, and whom 
we may call the Louis XYI. of the Papacy, except 
the tragic end which, thanks to God ! is not to be 
dreaded. Like the august and unfortunate victim of 
the French Revolution, he bears the crushing weight 
of an entire past of which he is innocent, but whose 
responsibility he finally accepts with blind enthusi- 
asm. He also began with projects of reform and 
smiles on liberty, to end with the most unbridled 
reaction. As to the purity of his life and the sin- 
cerity of his faith, calumny herself has never raised 
a suspicion against them. Let us seek, as far as the 
profane may, to penetrate this complex nature, which, 
through its medley of good qualities and defects, 
will have exercised a great influence on the fortunes 
of religion in the nineteenth century. 

Pius IX. is two years older than people commonly 
think. . He himself told our embassador in these 
charming terms : " They are always taking some- 
thing from the poor Pope. They have even taken 
two years from me in consequence of the confusion 
into which the events of the close of the last cen- 
tury had thrown registers of birth in the Pontifi- 
cal States." This rectification makes the Pope 
nearly eighty years old. He belongs, moreover, to a 
family in which longevity is traditional. His father 
died at the age of eighty-eight years, not through 
senile weakness, but in consequence of an accident. 
This very year the Pope celebrated the jubilee of his 
ordination. Now, before being a priest he was a 



192 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

soldier. Very young, he entered the noble guards. 
Thus with the sword he served that temporal power 
of the Papacy which he was afterward to defend in 
his Pontifical quality with so much energy and ob- 
stinacy. Few details are known about the obscure 
years of his priesthood. Pie owed to his nobility — 
for he belongs to the great family of the Mastai — as 
much as to his ecclesiastical qualities, which how- 
ever were real, his elevation to episcopal dignity, 
and then to the Cardinalship. He became noted for 
his piety and gentleness. His diocese was as well 
administered as is possible in this country ; that suf- 
ficed to give him a great reputation as a popular 
bishop. His election on the death of Gregory XVI. 
in 1846, was effected with astonishing rapidity, and 
without the usual intrigues. One of the first acts of 
his reign was the proclamation of an amnesty, which 
filled not only Rome, but all Italy with enthusiasm. 
To comprehend the almost delirious character which 
that enthusiasm assumed, we must go back to the 
political and moral circumstances of Italy. The mo- 
ment had come when the movement for emancipa- 
tion had gained a development which nothing could 
arrest. Proud and shivering, all Italy was rising up 
against those who had insolently told her that she 
had no right to exist as a nation, and that she was 
only a convenient geographical circumscription. On 
the other hand, some of her most illustrious patriots 
dreamed of a close alliance between the Papacy and 
national independence, forgetting the part of the 
Holy See in the past, and the maledictions of Dante, 
who truly was the inspired voice of Italian patriotism, 
irritated at being always wrecked on the oecumenical 
sovereignty, which could not espouse that cause with- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 193 

out diminishing itself. These generous theorists of 
the future mentally recast the Pontificate in their 
own image, and intrusted to her the care of repre- 
senting and defending, by a purely moral authority, 
enfranchised and regenerate Italy. Abbe Geoberti, 
in his famous book on the " Primate,'' had developed 
these ideas with great eloquence. In that work peo- 
ple found a medley of elevated philosophy and liberal 
demands which secured it considerable credit. Under 
this impulse all eyes turned toward Rome on the 
death of the old Pope, from whom they could only 
expect new editions of his Encyclical against liberty 
of conscience. It is easy to comprehend what rap- 
tures seized this ardent and changeful people, which 
feels things as much with its imagination as with its 
heart, when it saw proceeding from the urns of the 
Conclave a sympathetic name compromised by no 
reactionary measure. These favorable dispositions 
became a true intoxication on the proclamation of 
an amnesty, which was, however, less general and 
liberal than might be supposed. People applauded 
in it all that it seemed to promise ; they hailed the 
future in the present, and the name of Pius IX. flew 
from lip to lip as the symbol of a risen country, as 
the pledge of all progress and deliverance. Popular 
enthusiasm no longer saw things as they were, but 
as it desired them. Though wide awake, Italy 
dreamed of the accomplishment, of her aspirations, 
and she thanked the new Pope for her dream as if 
it were already realized. Instead of contenting her- 
self with a recognition of the very modest reforms 
already granted, she drew from them all that she 
could desire with an ingenuous faith which was to be 

cruelly deceived. This enthusiasm itself reacted on 

13 



194 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

the ardent soul of Pius IX. He tasted all the sweets 
of popularity, and gave new pledges in the organiza- 
tion of a State Council, wherein all the cities of his 
States were to be represented by laymen, and in the 
organization of a national guard. Yet those who 
were thoroughly acquainted with the Holy Father 
knew how precarious were these reforms, since they 
did not repose on firmly fixed principles of conduct, 
but on essentially changing impressions. He suf- 
fered himself to be guided by the inspirations of his 
heart without subjecting them to reflection, and he 
w r as quite disposed to take these inspirations for di- 
rect communications from the Holy Spirit. 

I was told at Rome that before deciding on some 
simple police measure, the Pope kept his eyes long 
fixed on a crucifix, then he determined it suddenly 
as though he had received advice from Heaven, 
though it was a minute administrative detail. 
" Thus," said the eminent and sprightly man from 
whom I have this anecdote, " does Pius IX. bring 
the heights of heaven into the dens of politics." I 
surely understand that the disciple of Jesus Christ 
may do all in his name, according to the apostolical 
precept ; but he ought to consult his Master with his 
conscience and reason, and strive to grasp the spirit 
of his precepts or example. Nothing is more dan- 
gerous than wishing in all things to proceed by in- 
spiration, for men then excuse themselves from re- 
flection, and give way to every caprice of the imag- 
ination, and to all the fluctuations of the sensibilities. 
To-day the wind blows from the north, to-morrow it 
will come from the south, and men allow themselves 
to be turned about at its will. 

The north wind soon replaced the south wind with 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 195 

the Holy Father. In treating the Roman question 
I have already related the grave incidents which in- 
duced this sudden change, without at all palliating 
the faults and crimes of a violent demagogy which 
did not recoil before the murder of the Pope's chief 
magistrate, the illustrious Rossi. Tet it would be 
unjust to impute this crime to the entire party, since 
it was the deed of an isolated fanaticism. But even 
before the revolutionary movement had displaced 
progress in regular ways, when all Italy was echoing 
from end to end with the cry, Viva Pio Nono, the 
Holy Father was beginning to turn from his liberal 
policy. On this very curious phase of his reign we 
have a document of prime importance, which permits 
us to follow from day to day the crisis of his mind, if 
I may so speak. This is the correspondence of Mas- 
simo d'Azeglio, who played a considerable part in the 
Italian renovation, aud whose honesty is universally 
recognized. It was he who nobly said as he assumed 
the direction of the Piedmontese ministry in an hour 
of great danger, " I am not in power, but in duty." 
He has left the purest and most respectable reputa- 
tion. He was, moreover, a Catholic in conviction, 
of liberal and sincere piety. The King, Charles Al- 
bert, had sent him in 1848 as Extraordinary Embas- 
sador to the Holy Father, in order to induce him to 
give the cause of national independence the support 
of his popularity and moral authority. In another 
letter I have explained why the common Father of the 
faithful had not thought it possible to take part in 
this conflict, though really, by withdrawing his troops 
from the Italian army, he espoused the Austrian 
cause ; this he openly did shortly after. What is 
especially interesting in the letters of Massimo 



196 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

cTAzeglio — charming letters, written in French, in 
simple, living, and picturesque language — is a species 
of psychological study of Pius IX. made as events 
progressed. These letters always speak of him with 
the greatest respect, without any slanderous spirit, but 
they lay bare all the secret springs which act in the 
Pontifical Court on the will of the chief of Catholi- 
cism ; chey make us follow in all their windings the 
hardly edilying channels through which the so-called 
celestial inspirations pass before being transformed 
into motu proprio. Nowhere have I seen presented 
with more truth that terrible Roman machinery 
which works only in a miserable sacristy interest. 
It was of this that Massimo d'Azeglio said with en- 
ergy, " At Pome they fabricate an artificial con- 
science, which they substitute for the human con- 
science." A profound saying, which perfectly ex- 
plains the overthrow of morality in behalf of religious 
despotism. Good is whatever profits the hierarchy; 
evil is whatever compromises it. Deeds are arranged 
in these two categories, and tried by this test. Mas- 
simo d'Azeglio disengages with Italian neatness, and 
judges with his probity as an honest man and a con- 
vinced patriot, the Jesuit intrigue, whose nets gradu- 
ally entangle the soul of Pius IX., and lead him back 
to the true traditions of the Papacy. One day he 
believes he has shaken him, and led him back to the 
Italian cause. He is charmed with his goodness, 
gentleness, his mind so free from pride. A few 
hours later he returns ; every thing is changed. 
Some Jesuit has been able to trouble the soul of the 
Pope, to awaken its scruples, and the sacred weather- 
cock has turned anew. I recommend the perusal of 
this correspondence to all who wish to acquire a pro- 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 197 

found knowledge of the Roman Court and of the 
character of Pius IX. We see that the author sought 
as long as possible to lull himself in illusions. His 
piety made it his duty to abandon hope only at the 
last extremity. We see his inward struggles in these 
various phases, until at length, all vails being rent, 
and the true condition of things appearing in full 
light, he breaks out in words of indignation, and he 
too shakes the dust off his feet in turn, not against 
Catholic institutions, in which he did not cease to 
believe, but against the Roman Court and its detest- 
able policy. Let the blind admirers of Rome, and 
especially Protestants, who feel themselves attracted 
by its splendors, hear and weigh the indisputable 
testimony of this pious and chivalrous Catholic, who 
speaks only of what he saw with his own eyes in the 
Eternal City! 

Gaeta, whither the Pope fled, was his rock of 
Patmos ; at least, this is what is pretended by those 
sad councilors who, at the epoch of his hegira, took 
possession of that feeble mind ; there he perceived 
that liberty is of the devil, that whatever resembles 
or leads to it should be accursed. Did it not pro- 
ceed from the hell of a republic to enter the paradise 
of an absolute monarchy, a paradise which, it is true, 
needed to be guarded by foreign troops against the 
dull irritation of its inhabitants ; but what ! did not 
the garden of Eden itself have its cherubim and 
flaming sword ? Only the business was not to keep 
those under who had first dwelt there, but to prevent 
their return, which shows a slight difference in the 
two situations. It was ever the government of the 
Bourbons of Naples, which had combined treason 
with violence, and cast into prison citizens whom it 



198 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

had attracted into its councils as into a snare, that 
seemed in all points admirable to him, and was the 
ideal model which he sought to propose for the imi- 
tation of Christendom. This absolutist tack of the 
liberal Pope of 1846, shows his mobility and mental 
weakness. It was at Gaeta that, a new Moses, he 
received the tables of the political and religious law 
which thenceforth he was never to grow weary of 
presenting to the world; his two Encyclicals and the 
Syllabus are its summary. Unhappily for his people, 
he could pass at will from theory to practice, and 
try on the shoulders of the Romans a yoke which he 
imagined had been forged on a celestial anvil by the 
holy angels. 

I am not narrating the reign of Pius IX. ; I limit 
myself to trying to make him known. Since his re- 
turn to Some he has always remained what his exile 
to Gaeta had made him. The doctrine of Jesuitism 
is incarnate in him ; I do not mean its morality, for 
nobody accuses the Pope of duplicity. It is his very 
sinceritj 7 which is his strength, and an invaluable ad- 
vantage to his inspirers. He transforms their calcu- 
lations into fervor and enthusiasm, and appears to 
purify them by contact with his soul. It seems like 
a muddy spring, so long as it is subterranean, which 
regains its limpidity the moment it leaps up into the 
open air. The resolutions of Pius IX. indeed come 
from the subterranean springs of the Gesu, and pro- 
ceed from that tortuous policy which defrauds at 
ease in maximam Dei gloriam y but he shows so 
much good faith in them that he takes away their 
odious morality, while preserving their native brand 
of civil and religious absolutism. His personal piety 
is indisputable, while in the past his purity of life 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 199 

has never been touched by suspicion. He bears up 
his eighty years magnificently, without an infirmity. 
His figure is full of keenness and gentleness, but it is 
the gentleness of invincible obstinacy : he has not a 
doubt, not a hesitation, on the course he has taken. 
He is proud of his ideas, sure of himself. He feels 
himself a prophet, and acts as if he were. Moreover, 
the prophet unbends : his domestic life does not 
cease to be very simple, it is the life of a monk ; yet 
he delights in amiable speeches, in conversational 
familiarity. In the audiences which he grants to all 
that ask them, he suddenly drops the tone and bear- 
ing of the Pontiff to speak like a simple mortal of 
the health of his visitors and of the incidents of their 
journey. This is what especially charms English 
neophytes. Is there any thing more amiable than a 
smiling and jesting God ? The Romans are harder 
to please ; have they not imagined that the Pope has 
an evil eye, and that his benediction brings misfor- 
tunes ? They shun it, too, as far as possible. 

If bondage to his system is perfect in Pius IX., his 
heart is full of kindness. In an Encyclical, he will 
not hesitate to devote all heretics to eternal flames, 
but he will tolerate no anger at individuals. One 
day he said to a young Erench priest who was going 
back to his own country : " My child, you cannot 
hate error enough ; but love him who has fallen into 
it, I do not say like a brother, but like a mother." 
It should not be forgotten that this maternal love 
exacts the doing every thing for the salvation of 
the soul which is its object, and that to tear it from 
doctrines which ruin it they will refuse it air and 
light, and send the body to rot in some dungeon of 
the Inquisition. We must not be deceived by 



200 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

this clerical gentlenest, sincere as it may appear in 
the Pope. 

Such seems to us the President, the Chief, the In- 
spirer of the future Council ; an upright and ardent 
soul, fixed forever, despite his early mobility, in the 
doctrines of Jesuitism ; uniting fanaticism with good- 
ness ; following his own impulses as inspirations ; be- 
lieving in himself as in a dogma; without pride, 
because he thinks himself at an inaccessible height, 
and believes that so indisputable a superiority need 
not be asserted ; indulgent and inflexible ; incapable 
of political management, following ever his path, his 
idea; as ignorant of the times as the lowest monk; 
able to be a sincere Christian in his humility, and a 
Pontiff usurping the rights of God and of his Christ. 
Behold the man ! Never did Saint Peter's bark, so 
called, have such a dangerous pilot in a more tem- 
pestuous voyage. The Holy Father, as the Yicar of 
Christ, will vainly say, " It is I ; be not afraid ;" it 
is he that directs the tacking of the ship. For that 
very reason should the crew tremble ! 

Among the Italian Cardinals, the only one who 
is now of real importance is the famous Antonelli. 
He will not figure in the front rank among the 
doctors of the Council, for he has, perhaps, never 
opened a theological work. He is Cardinal Deacon, 
and has never received priestly orders. But if he 
dogmatizes little, he acts much ; and he will certainly 
be as influential behind the scenes of the Council as 
he will be silent in its deliberations. Cardinal Anto- 
nelli differs in every point from the Pope. He does 
not ask his political inspirations from heaven. Secre- 
tary of State to the Holy Father, he really governs; 
he does it with that short-sighted skill which only 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 201 

considers the embarrassment of the moment, and which 
gets out of them as Figaro got out of the imbroglios 
into which he plunged. Cardinal Antonelli, who is 
not thought to have serious convictions, who has 
always been a frivolous and worldly prelate, has put 
himself entirely at the service of the Jesuitical reac- 
tion ; he has there sought his point of support. He has, 
then, no excuse ; for nothing can be more abominable 
than to play the fanatic through policy, and to use a 
crafty prudence in violence. He indeed revealed the 
measure of his disinterestedness in the jealousy which 
he showed toward men most devoted to the Papacy 
when he had reason to fear lest they should eclipse 
himself with the Holy Father. Thus, when the 
generous Lamoriciere came to offer his sword to the 
Holy Father in the redoubtable and decisive struggle 
which ended with the battle of Castel-Fidardo and in 
the loss of all Romagna and Umbria, he constantly 
clashed with the ill-will of the Cardinal Secretary of 
State, w T ho looked with evil eye on those who were serv- 
ing his cause without his aid, and crossed, irritated, and 
weakened the General as much as he could. Mon- 
siegneur de Merode, brofcher-in-law of M. de Monta- 
lembert, a brilliant and convinced man, who seriously 
sought to form a Pontifical army which could be 
counted on, was forced to undergo a daily struggle 
with Cardinal Antonelli, who had no rest till he had 
deprived this useful servant of the Papacy of his 
high position. He also delights on occasion, and 
with more reserve, to show his ill-will toward the 
chiefs of the French army of occupation, and his 
proceedings have sometimes led to an outburst. 
Cardinal Antonelli, who feels his full worth, desires 
to preserve himself as long as possible for the Papacy. 



202 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

His fear of death is proverbial. It is said that when 
the cholera broke out in Rome some years ago, 
Antonelli, under pretense of watching over the 
Holy Father and preserving him from the malady, 
shut himself up in the Vatican and forbade all comr 
munication from without. One of his enemies who 
had something to avenge, and who, prelate as he 
was, counted on indulging in this satisfaction, came 
to the Vatican declaring that he must speak on seri- 
ous affairs with the Cardinal Secretary of State. 
The latter could not decline the interview. u Whence 
do you come ?" he asked the importunate prelate. " I 
come," replied he, "from the hospital, where I have 
been chafing cholera patients." To paint the wrath 
and terror of the Secretary of State is impossible. 
That vengeance was perfect. Moreover, we have 
only to consider him closely to judge him. At sight 
of that sly, weasel-face you comprehend his past and 
his career. What is most astonishing is, that honest 
Pius IX. should so long have kept this unloyal and 
unspiritual adviser beside him as the director of his 
policy. No doubt the Pontiff regards this as a 
necessity of his sovereignty, and we have thus a new 
proof of the full moral independence wdiich it secures 
him. 

Of the other Cardinals I shall say nothing, because 
their work is insignificant beside that of Cardinal An- 
tonelli, whose compeers they hardly are, since he alone 
holds the clew of all the business and the intrigues. 
The whole Sacred College at Pome belongs to the 
extreme tendency. The Neapolitan Cardinal Andrea 
alone had shown some feeble good-will to the national 
cause, but he was drenched with disgusts, severely 
reprimanded, and returned to die sadly at Rome some 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 203 

months since, to teach all his colleagues and his suc- 
cessors that they cannot accept the purple without 
taking with it all the countersigns of the Roman 
Court. I know but one Italian entitled to sit in 
the Council who is a friend of freedom : this is 
Father Tosti, the superior of the celebrated Convent 
of Monte Cassini, a distinguished scholar, nourished 
in retirement on the finest studies. Drawing in his 
convent on one of the richest ecclesiastical libraries 
in the world, he has distinguished himself by a very 
erudite history of the order of Saint Benedict, on 
which he is still laboring. He has also interfered 
in contemporary struggles with writings in which 
breathes a true Christian liberality ; he has com- 
bated the Ultramontane and Jesuitical tendency 
with rare frankness in eloquent pages which have 
widely echoed. He is much disliked at Rome, whither 
he has just come to sit in the Council. It is certain 
that he will there support the Grallican party with all 
his power. Unhappily, he occupies only a second- 
ary position in the episcopate, and he will be made 
to feel it. 

If I come to the eminent prelates of other nations, 
I encounter first Monseigneur Manning, the Arch- 
bishop of Westminster, an old graduate of Oxford. 
He is a convert to Catholicism; he has all the fervor 
and all the narrowness, though not the eminent 
talents, of Cardinal Wiseman, his predecessor. His 
pastoral letters are prolix, and very weak in argu- 
ment. He will do well to vote as others do in the 
Council rather than defend his party in speech, for he 
has only a limping logic and a hardly profound science 
to devote to that service. His importance comes 
much more from his position than from his powers. 



204: Some, Italy, and the Council. 

and also from the promises which he makes of the 
near return of England to Catholicism. 

Among the German Bishops who made a protest at 
Fulda against the proclamation of the new doctrine of 
the Papal infallibility, in language full of respect, but 
whose bearing escaped none, I will mention Bishop 
Hoefele. He represents very honorably that German 
Catholicism which has gained much from the contigu- 
ity of the Reform, and which has taken up habits of 
serious study on that classic soil of science. Hoefele 
w 7 as long a professor of theology at Tubingen ; he has 
published a well-reputed edition of the Apostolic Fa- 
thers, and a History of the Councils, which must fur- 
nish him useful information for the debates soon to 
open. I will mention further Bishop Hanneberger of 
Bavaria, a friend and disciple of Dollinger, animated 
by a truly evangelical spirit. I remember hearing 
from him, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at 
Jerusalem, a very simple and very fine discourse, 
animated by a truly evangelical spirit, without the 
least trace of superstition. He, too, is a man of 
learning. May these German prelates not undergo 
the soothing and lulling influence of Rome, but quit 
themselves as men in the grand debate ! It is greatly 
hoped here that, when once they have touched 
Italian soil, they will leave their protestations in their 
baggage, and suffer themselves to be carried away by 
the general enthusiasm. People already see them at 
the feet of Pius IX. I hope truly that Rome reckons 
without her host. 

I come to the French bishops, and shall try to make 
yon acquainted not with their opinions, on which I 
have sufficiently dilated, but with themselves. Let 
us begin with the Coryphei of Ultramontanism. You 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 205 

have first our Cardinals. I will say nothing of Mon- 
seigneur Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, because 
you may be assured of his nullity in the Council. 
He is a prelate of very noble bearing ; the most not- 
able event of his life was being buried alive when he 
was merely a young Abbe whose existence did not 
seem so precious as since he has occupied one of the 
chief Sees of France. The mistake was seasonably 
discovered, and he has furnished a very brilliant eccle- 
siastical career — at least from the stand-point of pre- 
ferment. He will represent to advantage in the 
Council that Bordeaux vineyard of which he has such 
a varied and profound knowledge. In the French 
Senate, to which he belongs, he has only made weak 
and insignificant speeches ; the bench of Cardinals, 
however, was never resplendent there, and in religious 
questions, whenever there is an unskillful thing to 
do or say, the prelates are never found wanting. 
Nothing is heavier or more trailing than this ecclesi- 
astical verbiage. However, an exception must be 
made from the oratorical stand-point in favor of Mon- 
seigneur Bonnechose, Archbishop of Rouen, and Car- 
dinal. He can speak with elegance and distinction. 
I perfectly remember his first efforts at Paris thirty 
years ago. He was then a young Abbe, sweet and 
sympathetic in his eloquence. There was even a 
gleam of Liberalism upon him. He w T as the most 
faithful disciple of the celebrated Abbe Bautain, who 
had been censured at Strasburg by his bishop. It is 
true that his resistance resembled that Russian aristo- 
cratic opposition which reproaches the tyrant for not 
being despotic enough. The Abbe Bautain asserted 
the insufficiency of human reason in a way which 
seemed exaggerated even at Rome. But they did 



206 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

not then give much attention to the basis of his doc- 
trine ; they saw him struggling with his bishop ; that 
was enough to make him a Liberal Catholic and bring 
his disciples into favor. In the front rank of these 
shone the Abbe Bonnechose. He was very popular 
at Paris, about 1840, in the little chapel of Foreign 
Missions, where he preached, if I mistake not, during 
Lent. People liked his unction and agreeableness. 
However, he remained in the temperate regions, and 
was not destined to enter the phalanx of the Ravig- 
nans and the Lacordaires. He early became Bishop 
of Perpignan, and showed great administrative gifts. 
Scarcely nominated to the Archiepiscopal See of 
Rouen, he received a Cardinal's hat. The courtier- 
like tone of the discourse which he addressed on this 
occasion to the Emperor Napoleon was observed. He 
gave the ultramontane party pledges, but always with 
a certain prudence, as to political applications of the 
system which might annoy him as French Senator. 
It was he who said in open Senate that he considered 
his clergy as a regiment of which he was colonel, and 
that he meant to exact military obedience. In the 
Council he will neither compromise himself with the 
Holy See nor with the French government. 

Most of the provincial bishops reach Pome in a 
state of true Ultramontane fervor. Monseigneur de 
Montauban is distinguished for his fanaticism ; this is 
his sole title to notorietv, for his circulars are master- 
pieces of bad style and absurdity. 

Monseigneur Plantier, Bishop of Nimes, follows the 
same flag, only he gives it so much the more glaring 
and visible colors because he began by hoisting the 
opposite standard He is a converted Gallican, but 
he is truly converted. Bishop of a diocese where 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 207 

Protestantism is largely represented, he thinks it his 
duty constantly to provoke it, which is a culpable im- 
prudence in a country so often deluged with blood in 
religious struggles, and which in 1815 was the thea- 
ter of true massacres accomplished by brigands who 
pretended to be champions of the Catholic faith. 
The ultramontane pastoral letters of Monseigneur 
Plantier exasperate the nerves of France, when she 
reads them, by their bilious tone and their bitter rub- 
bish. But let us admit that he is outdone in this holy 
war by Monseigneur Pie, Bishop of Poictiers, who 
should be called the Zouave Prelate, after his famous 
adventure in a funeral oration over a living thief, who 
was reported to have died in the service of the Holy 
Father. I believe I have already mentioned this 
affair. Monseigneur Pie is himself a zouave of the 
infallible Papacy, ever ready to charge Grallicanism, 
his episcopal rapier in the air, shooting out his circu- 
lars right and left like grape-shot ever at his disposal, 
patronizing the grossest superstitions, founding relig- 
ious festivals for relics that can only be named in 
Latin ; finally one of those useful adversaries who ren- 
der a hundredfold more service to the causes they 
combat than to those they defend. It is with a cer- 
tain pleasure that I see him at Rome ; he reserves a 
few weak chances of success for the Gallican Prelates 
of whom I must now speak. 

1 count three of these, Monseigneur dela Rochelle, 
a learned and eloquent prelate, known for his liber- 
ality ; then Monseigneur Dupanloup, and the Arch- 
bishop of Paris. You know all the noise made by 
the former in his recent manifesto against the infalli- 
bility of the Pope. I confess that after his attitude 
of late years I did not expect such clear and decided 



208 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

language from him. Monseigneur Dupanloup is a 
man of vehement impulses, incapable of arresting 
his pen. Whatever crosses his heart or his mind 
must at once explode. His ruddy face reveals a 
sanguineous temperament ; he can only work with 
all the windows open, and he tires his secretaries out, 
as some cavaliers harry several horses in their day's 
ride. He has written enormously. His best claim 
to literary distinction is a large book on education, 
which opened the doors of the French Academy to 
him ; but his circulars and pamphlets have produced 
a far greater sensation, for he has the pen of a true 
journalist, and shuns the jeremiads of his compeers. 
He has a lively turn, the granum salis, irony and 
passion. He dilutes far too much these ingredients 
of a good style. It is largely to him that we owe 
the detestable law on public education which still 
rules us, and which gives the lion's share to the 
clergy in the direction of the University. Last year 
Monseigneur Dupanloup waged a deplorable cam- 
paign against lay instruction, upon which he invoked 
the severities of the civil authority, while seeming to 
demand the complete freedom of education ; a sure 
means of strengthening the evil tendencies which he 
denounced. But he has flung fire and flames at new 
Italy, and defended the temporal power of the Pa- 
pacy with more passion than any of his colleagues. 
Yet he is not disposed to follow the Papacy quite to 
the proclamation of its infallibility ; the services 
which he has rendered will prevent their treating his 
opposition too contemptuously should it continue. 
Despite all his ardor as a Catholic controversialist, 
Monseigneur Dupanloup is nevertheless a hundred 
leagues from the doctrines of the Encyclical, which 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 209 

he has striven to color with a liberal hue in a com- 
plaisant commentary. Despite his enforced confi- 
dence in the result of the Council, he must go there 
in fear and trembling. 

The Prelate who will quite certainly feel least at 
ease in Rome is the Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur 
Darboy. Observe that fine and distinguished phys- 
iognomy, somewhat sad in its nobleness ; you recog- 
nize in him a modern man so far as it is possible to 
remain one under an archiepiscopal miter. Mon- 
seigneur Darboy belongs to the most decided tendency 
of liberal Catholicism, as is proved by the sympa- 
thetic protection he so long accorded to Father 
Hyacinthe. He stoutly resisted the encroachments 
of religious corporations on his authority, and openly 
broke with all the popelings who sought to impose 
themselves on him. He is also greatly attached to 
the grandeur of France, which he confounds a little 
too much with the fortunes of the empire, and the 
Syllabus has no more decided foe. Judge if the air 
of Rome can suit his mind, and how he is there con- 
sidered. I am very curious to know what his atti- 
tude will be in the debate, and how far he will be 
able to express all his thoughts. 

Laymen will not enter the Council, but the in- 
fluence of some of them will there be very puissant. 
One layman like Louis Yeuillot is worth twenty 
bishops. The Editor of the TJnivers will be in the 
High Assembly, like Agrippina in the councils of 
Nero, " invisible and present," according to the ex- 
pression of Racine in his beautiful tragedy. Louis 
Yeuillot has elevated abuse and invective to the 
height of an institution. This harsh guardian of 

Ultramontane orthodoxy has been very well called the 

14 



210 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

King of Abuse. He is well esteemed at Rome ; there 
his journal brings rain and fair weather. We may 
be sure that he will play a great part during the 
Council. He will represent the lay element and 
the universal priesthood by the broadsides of 
scarcely canonical abuse, which he will let fly at 
all who will not fall in with the pace of Ultramon- 
tanism. 

To give you an idea of what is expected in the 
Liberal camp at Rome of the High Assembly, I will 
introduce you into one of the most distinguished 
Italian houses, which I cannot otherwise designate. 
There I found a freetalker, as bold as any in the 
most independent drawing-rooms of Paris. Here is 
about what I heard from very well-informed and 
very sprightly lips. 

" The Pope vainly says, as he did the other day, 
pointing to the sun, 'My infallibility is no less evi- 
dent? As w^ell go to a cardinal's reception this 
evening in a Merry-Andrew's costume as assume in- 
fallibility before Christendom; since this does not 
seem less mottled with divers colors when we reflect 
on all the opinions which in turn it has sanctioned in 
the past. Here at Rome we see the reverse side of 
religion ; it is the counterpart of every thing that it 
was at its origin. It is no longer a religion, it is a 
court. The great politicians who retain the Papacy, 
when they have rejected Jesus Christ, are unworthy ; 
which does not hinder me (said the speaker, with an 
inimitable smile) from being a good Catholic." 

" The Council," said one to him, " will probably 
be a vain effort." 

" Say rather, a stinging blow," replied the 
Italian. 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 211 

These are the thoughts of a large part of the 
galleries, where the spectators are most intel- 
ligent. It is well to glean them up, and I send them 
to you in their sincerity and freedom. The phrase 
a stinging Mow will remain ; it may well prove pro- 
phetic. E. de Pkessense. 



212 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTER IX. 

At Naples — A Festival — The Bourbon Rule in Naples — Francis II. — 
Stains on the Cause of Liberty — Garibaldi's Capture of Naples — 
Measures of Cavour — Justice of History — Present Irritation — Popu- 
lar Liberty — Education — Philosophy — Religion — The Buffoon on the 
Stage and in the Pulpit — Brigandage — The Camorra — Perplexities 
of the new Government — Italians in Politics — Evangelical Labors at 
Naples — Political and Religious Outlook of Latin Races — Pagan 
Naples — The Decline of Paganism — Revelations at Pompeii — Im- 
pure Gods, Gladiators, Slaves — Discoveries in Art — Manuscripts— 
The Victory of Christianity. 

Naples, Dece?nber 1, 1869. 

I MUST transport you from the City of Ruins and from 
the Council to Naples, which may be called the great 
enchantress of Italy, and which has, as it were, intox- 
icated with her filters the numerous generations who 
have in turn fallen asleep on her coasts. I arrived 
here just as they were celebrating the great festivals 
in honor of a new-born prince, grandson to Yictor 
Emmanuel. The occasion is excellent for judging of 
the condition of the new kingdom, at least in the 
southern provinces, and also to appreciate a new as- 
pect of classical antiquity. Thus the most actual 
present and the past are constantly meeting in my 
letters, as in this Italian country, where we cannot 
take a step without meeting some great ruin. 

Fifteen years ago I visited this same Naples. It 
was then bowed under the yoke of its Bourbon, who 
prided himself on imitating under this fine sky the 
harsh and austere despotism of Nicholas, and dis- 
played all the graces of a corporal without ever 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 213 

having seen fire, unless in the fuses of cannon which he 
iiad caused to be fired at his people. He resolutely 
applied to them a system of brutalization, and con- 
scientiously began with his own house, for he kept 
his eldest son, heir to the throne, in dense ignorance, 
and denied him a share in public life. He had so 
well succeeded in this work that when he desired to 
marry him at Munich he dared not send him to a 
foreign court, and it was necessary that the bride 
should be brought to Naples that the imbecility of her 
husband might not appear to every eye. It was 
while conducting his son to the frontiers of the king- 
dom to receive the Princess that the King took the 
disease which carried him off at fifty years, his con- 
science burdened with abominable treasons, for which 
his Jesuitical confessors enthusiastically amnestied 
him, since they bore hard on the infamous Liberals. 
His son, Francis IL, found himself on the throne be- 
fore he had the slightest idea of politics, aud he was 
content to continue the system of which he had been 
the first victim. The machine was set up ; it went 
alone until one fine morning, when it broke down in 
the shock with triumphant Italian liberty. 

This triumph, let us frankly confess, was obtained 
by means that were not entirely laudable. Gari- 
baldi's Sicilian expedition remains a truly epic epi- 
sode, although it is now proved that he was positively 
aided in secret by Cavour ; yet it abides true that he 
incurred the greatest dangers, and that the struggle 
was heroic. Garibaldi has committed great political 
faults. He has often compromised the national cause 
by his speeches and his deeds ; he nevertheless re- 
mains a figure full of grandeur, which has no need 
of the halo of a demagogic prophet, with which he 



214 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

allows himself to be enveloped. His courage and 
disinterestedness have never been belied. He is like- 
wise the idol of this ardent and imaginative people, 
which finds in him the expression of its passions. 
Garibaldi is the explosion of the popular volcano, 
which has long left its wrath to rumble in its bosom 
against religious and political tyrannies. The tor- 
rent of fire sweeps on many pebbles with its lava. 
Generous feelings are blended with Utopian dreams, 
with imprudence, and abusive imprecations. 

The capture of Naples itself was much less admira- 
ble than the conquest of Sicily. People have greatly 
celebrated the entry of Garibaldi into the capital of 
the kingdom of the Two Sicilies without an army or 
escort, in a simple open coach. But every body 
knows to-day that Piedmontese gold had purchased 
many defections in the army and navy of Francis II. ; 
that the confidence of the unhappy young King had 
been laid asleep by the assurances of Cavour to his 
embassador while they were playing him false ; and, 
finally, that Gaeta was not taken by the Red Shirts, 
but by the regular troops of Yictor Emmanuel. This 
explains why the work of assimilation is much slower 
in Naples than in the other parts of Italy. History, 
after all, executes the justice of God ; every fault is 
severely punished and expiated by the very difficul- 
ties which it inevitably causes to arise. If I blame 
the measures of the Piedmontese policy, it is not, I 
confess, because I feel any great tenderness for its 
victims, for they were truly the scourge of one of the 
finest countries of the world ; and they have left it in 
a demoralized condition which will not be, for a long 
time, transformed. Despite contrary assertions I am 
convinced, by exact inquiries made on the spot, that the 



.Rome, Italy, and the Council, 215 

ancient kingdom of the Two Sicilies is much more 
attached to the Italian monarchy than is commonly 
thought ; or at least, that it experiences no temptation 
to put itself again under the yoke of its former mas- 
ters. The taxes excite great irritation, because they 
are really exorbitant; but they do not prevent the 
circulation of life and activity in the country, while 
it was stifled and died under the iron hand of the 
Bourbons. For the last two days I have witnessed 
great national festivals on occasion of the birth of an 
heir of the House of Savoy. I can affirm that the 
city is not adorned only by official hands, and that 
the illuminations are not merely by order. The in- 
habitants of the provinces troop to Naples, and en- 
camp in the streets, so as to miss none of these festi- 
vals. Were they so opposed to the present dynasty 
as people say, they would not be so eager to celebrate 
the birth of a Piedmontese Prince ; they would follow 
the example of Northern Italy toward the Austrians. 
It would be entirely absurd and unjust to' compare, 
as the Catholic press does, the feelings of the Nea- 
politans toward Victor Emmanuel with those of Milan 
and Venice before their enfranchisement toward the 
Emperor of Austria. I do not denv a certain discon- 
tent, but declared hostility does not exist. Brigand- 
age itself, that last prop of Francis II., who has ex- 
pended the greater part of his fortune in paying it, 
is beating a retreat at every point. No restoration 
is, then, to be feared, unless from a general overturn 
in Europe. 

The new government has granted to Naples, as to 
the entire Italian kingdom, the principal liberties of 
constitutional government ; but the moral condition 
of the people of these provinces, to which I shall 



216 Eome, Italy, and the Council, 



,, ^^^, 



presently return, renders this present for the moment 
nearly useless, because ignorance and idleness do not 
know exactly what to do with it. What is infinitely 
more important, is the development of public educa- 
tion from the high to the humble. Popular schools 
have multiplied, though they are still insufficient, and 
not persistent enough; but salvation lies in the for- 
mation of a new generation that can read and write. 
The Italian government will doubtless walk reso- 
lutely in this path. Superior instruction is set up on 
a grand scale in the University of Naples. Unhap- 
pily, the youth, habituated to the sweet idleness of 
this delicious climate, improve it only very imper- 
fectly. They were recently obliged to quell a mob 
of students, who rebelled because they thought the 
theme required for the baccalaureate too difficult ; 
they indeed desire the diploma, but not the study 
which it ought to represent, that it may not be a 
vain simulacrum. Superior instruction, through an 
anticatholic reaction, which is only too easy to un- 
derstand, belongs almosf entirely to the most ad- 
vanced tendencies of pantheistic philosophy. One 
of the most popular professors lately opened his 
course with these words : " Gentlemen, we shall begin 
by showing how baseless and insane is the idea of a 
God. We shall then proceed to serious studies." 
Such a philosophy will not elevate the people. Were 
it to decidedly triumph in the higher classes, while 
blind devotion continued to rule in the ignorant 
classes, the decline would be incurable. The most 
excellent institutions in the world would not restore 
their moral and mental health. 

It is here that we must see, next to Rome, what 
papal Catholicism makes of a people when it can 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 217 

mold them as it will. We have a school in France 
that teaches independent morality ; that is, entirely 
separate from religion, and self-sufficient : in Italian 
Catholicism we have religion independent of moral- 
ity ; devotion considered as a means of escaping the 
obligations of the eternal law, or of conveniently 
expiating transgressions. Nothing more surely and 
more deeply perverts the human soul than religion 
thus understood, for it becomes a sort of plenary 
indulgence granted to evil. It produces security in 
vice, and almost in crime. A thousand times better 
is the absence of religion than such devotion, which 
is only a base terror of hell, and a material and 
derisive means of self-insurance. It is also to Cathol- 
icism, fashioned in the image of the Jesuits and ruled 
by them, that this nation owes the gravest of its defects, 
which prevents the possibility of building up any 
thing solid upon them ; I mean its facility in false- 
hood, its inveterate disposition to cheat. Not only is 
there no respect for truth, but it is mocked, and 
people would think themselves duped did they not 
deceive their neighbors. Hence none can trust any 
body ; distrust is universal. The bond of true human 
fellowship is sincerity, according to the profound say- 
ing of Saint Paul, " Speak every man truth with his 
neighbor, for we are members one of another." 
Speech is, indeed, the sole mode of intellectual ex- 
change among men. To lie is to substitute bad 
money for good coin. A land over which falsehood 
rules is like a country where the true gold can no 
longer be distinguished from counterfeit pieces : ex- 
change has become impossible, the social bond is 
relaxed, and disorder is universal. This is the great 
sore of these southern populations — a sore which will 



21 S Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

be mortal if it be not promptly healed. A man who 
knows and loves this land well said to me energetic- 
ally, " There, conscience is dead, it is rotten." Con- 
sequently the corner-stone, the rock on which we might 
build, evades us ; we find only a mobile and fugitive 
surface. Intelligence surely is not lacking ; it is 
quick, thoughtless, piercing, free — but it has no com- 
pass, no fixed star in the moral heavens. Its brill- 
iancy resembles the phosphorescence of these south- 
ern seas — which does not really shine — all the more 
because education is nothing, and the taste for learn- 
ing is still quite undeveloped. The lazzaroni spirit 
is only too generally diffused in the circumambient 
air; it is an influenza found under the embroidered 
coat of the courtier. The Neapolitan is at once 
sober and sensual ; he only needs a bit of bread, an 
orange, and a cup of coffee for his morning repast; 
he quite easily earns what he strictly needs ; he then 
delights to roll himself up a ring in the sun, like the 
white of an egg, or at evening under the chandeliers 
of his theaters. His abode is neither comfortable nor 
very neat; but his gloves are faultless, and his wife is 
adorned like a shrine. Every thing is for the world, 
for the gratification of vanity. His true fireside is 
the public square, the street, the theater. He loves 
sallies, and executes them with sprightliness. The 
buffoon remains the most original and truthful type 
of his literature. It has been said that ancient Russia 
was an absolute monarchy tempered by assassination. 
The old Neapolitan rule was despotism tempered by 
the jests of the Merry -Andrew. The boards which 
he trod were a sort of escape-valve and solace for the 
repressed public spirit. A gesture, a word on the 
tip of the lips, escaping in the flash of a rapid and 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 219 

malicious smile, suffice for allusion. Yet one should 
not be unjust even with a buffoon. At Naples he is 
a real artist, full of spirit, caustic, a perfect mimic of 
the ridiculous wherever he encounters it, skillful in 
speaking the various popular dialects, and besides a 
very good fellow, and in his way, religious. The 
actor who spends his time in making the Neapolitan 
populace laugh twice a day is an excellent father, 
and cares with devoted tenderness for his sick wife. 
The Moliere of his times, he constantly renews his 
repertory, and plays w T hat he has composed. Alta- 
ville has displayed true talent in this coarsely flavored 
literature ; in the city he is the most excellent man 
that you will see, and he is surrounded by affection- 
ate esteem. Do not forget that we are in the land of 
contrasts. 

Under the former rule, the most successful buffoon 
was not at the theater of San Carlino, but in the 
pulpit of the Capuchins. There should we look to 
see the popular orator exert himself with many gri- 
maces and puppet gestures. What he chiefly sought 
was to excite the nerves of his auditory, mainly com- 
posed of women, to make them faint, and lead them 
trembling to the threshold of the confessional. Thev 
told me here of the effect produced by a certain 
Capuchin, who painted hell with such fearful realism 
that he tore cries of terror from the women who heard 
him. He closed a frightful description of the flames 
of hell with the picturesque expression, Quettafrit- 
tura! — What a frying ! And the good women cried 
out, Jesus, Mary ! What shall we do ? How escape ? 
The Church opened its arms, and they flew to it ; 
stretched out its hand, and they brought their offer- 
ings. But another preacher employed an image of 



220 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

the same class in an address to the King. The latter, 
who had heard of his reputation as a popular 
preacher, asked him to let the King hear him. " Look 
oiit," replied the Capuchin, " I cannot disguise the 
truth ; you do not know my genius, otherwise you 
would not ask me." The King insisted, but, as a pre- 
cautionary measure, he had him preach with closed 
doors. The Capuchin opened with the words, " I 
have always observed that when a fish rots, the head 
is first tainted." The King did not ask for the rest, 
and he did not insist on hearing him in public. This 
preacher at least united courage with originality, and 
his bold language made his audacious metaphor 
uass. 

JL 

The manner in which the last revolution was 
effected is an index of the moral condition of the 
people; never were seen more accumulated treasons, 
more brokerage or stock-jobbing of consciences. 
On the other hand the means employed by the roy- 
alists to regain power are still more blamable. We 
have already spoken of its paying brigands. If we 
reflect on it, can we find any thing more monstrous 
than to pretend to restore true order in any country, 
civil and religious order, by taking into pay, or at 
least encouraging or sustaining by subsidies, wretches 
who would have the green cap of prison ers-for-life in 
all the prisons of Europe, who carry fire and massacre 
through the villages, and who extort ransom from 
prisoners under penalty of death or slit ears? What 
has so long rendered the efficacious suppression of 
brigandage impossible is its always finding a sure 
asylum in the Papal States, whose frontier was an 
inviolable barrier against the Italian police. This, 
however, has been seen and done before all Europe 



Kome, Italy; and the Council. 221 

in the name of the pre-eminently conservative party, 
and with the notorious support of the Pontifical 
Government ! For some time brigandage has sensibly 
diminished ; this comes chiefly from the depletion of 
the treasury of Francis II., and from the redoubtable 
energy of the measures of repression. 

The ancient rule has left behind it another scourge 
which there will be much trouble in extirpating; 
this is the Camorra, a species of secret, but not polit- 
ical organization, which has spread its network over 
the entire country. It is quite difficult to know its 
origin, which is lost in the night of time. Perhaps it 
was at the outset an attempt to supplement the defi- 
ciencies of justice, and to replace it when its action 
paused too soon. The Camorra then, in those remote 
days, would resemble the Free Judges of the Middle 
Ages, who followed up those whom they had con- 
demned until they had reached them and made them 
undergo the penalty which, in a solemn session held 
perhaps underground, had been pronounced against 
them. But if the Camorra had such an origin it has 
truly been transformed ; it has become a species ot 
Free Masonry in oppression, which has no other aim 
than to plunder the people. We cannot comprehend 
how it has been able to get an authority accepted 
which is more burdensome than the best organized 
governmental tyranny. Doubtless it is through ter- 
ror on the one hand, and on the other by making its 
victims hope one clay to share its profits — for the 
Camorra is of good composition, like the House of 
Lords; it is not limited by rights of birth, and it 
opens its ranks to new adepts who seem worthy to 
sustain its cause. Initiation must be difficult ; proofs 
of courage are demanded of the candidate, a very 



222 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

easy courage moreover, since it consists in giving a 
dirk-stab on the order of the chiefs, and dirk-stabs 
from behind are willingly given. The adept belongs 
soul and body to the association, as in secret societies, 
only he serves no political ends ; he is merely the in- 
strument, and also the beneficiary, of a money making 
association, which gives dividends to its stockholders 
by means of the poniard. It is certain that the secret 
power of the Camorrists was recognized by a consid- 
erable portion of the population — that they raised 
their imposts quite at their ease. The peasant who 
carried provisions to the city remitted a tenth to some 
mysterious personage whom he found near the gate, 
and he dared not defraud these popular customs. 
The petty coachman remitted a portion of the money 
which he had received to a passer-by, who gave him 
a sign only too easy for him to recognize. The Cam- 
orrist made himself obeyed from the depth of the 
prisons, whither his exploits frequently led him. 
Sometimes blood flowed, when the task was to sub- 
due unexpected resistance, but that blood only ce- 
mented the pact between the Camorrist and the 
Neapolitan people. It has no doubt diminished since 
the fall of the ancient rule; but it is far from being 
abolished, for it withdraws into the shade, and its 
secret is almost never betrayed. It is divided into 
squads of ten men; each has its chief. When he 
wishes to confirm his power he flings a piece of money 
some steps before him, and asks whoever wishes to 
replace him to pick it up. If a hand is stretched out 
it must be immediately armed with the knife — for 
the old chief only yields if he is overcome in the com- 
bat which candidature induces. Ever the knife! It 
is the sign of this religion of pillage and murder ! 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 223 

I would not be unjust in the picture I am drawing 
of the Neapolitan nation. Much should be forgiven 
it in consideration of the education it has received, 
without forgetting the numerous and honorable ex- 
ceptions which show w^hat it might become under 
better influences — those courageous citizens who, like 
Poerio, have languished in the prisons of Ischia as 
the price of their patriotism, and who have never de- 
sired a pardon which seemed to them a true insult; 
those upright, honest, and truly pious hearts which 
are encountered here, as every-where. And then we 
must turn with confidence to the future, and expect 
the regeneration of this intelligent people. 

The new government encounters very great diffi- 
culties in the moral condition of the Neapolitans, as 
well as in that of Southern Italy in general. Thus 
one of the most insuperable obstacles to a good estab- 
lishment of the finances is precisely that facility in 
falsehood which is so common in this country. Vain- 
ly are the imposts so arranged as to meet the enor- 
mous deficit which weighs on the kingdom ; they 
come in very imperfectly; the channels may be w r ell 
hollowed out, they too often find supplemental ditches 
to drain them, and a good share stops on the way. 
Either the tax-payers find means of escaping them 
through ruse, or the subaltern officers ply their w T its 
to appropriate them to their ow r n use. This is the 
shameful sore of this country, through which some of 
its best resources flow away. A good observer said 
that what it had mainly lacked for some time w r as 
honest functionaries. The North possesses some of 
these, but they are rarer than tenors in the South. 
Add to this grave inconvenience an excessive mobility 
in the financial regulations, which leads to disorder 



224: Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

and endless delay — all causes of impoverishment for 
the public treasury. The lack of persistency and 
stability in political life always hinders its regular 
movement. The unbridled babbling of the Neapoli- 
tan is also a cause of weakness in the discharge of 
civic duties. I was told that when a simple munici- 
pal election w r as held at Naples, the result was not 
known till six weeks after the ballot. The reason is 
very simple ; every old municipal councilor wished to 
make a speech, and he gave way to his oratorical vein 
as though he alone were to speak. Italy invented 
discourses of two or three days' duration which set 
and rise with the sun. The moral life is in danger 
of running away in this unbridled prattle. However, 
to be just, we should recognize a political instinct in 
the Italian which always brings him up on his feet, 
and which in very critical hours enables him to find 
the practical issue with a skill which would rebuke 
many old diplomatists. It is still the race of Ma- 
chiavelli. They are also like the Athenians in the 
insatiable curiosity which consumes them. The cof- 
fee-house is to them what the agora was for the brill- 
iant loafers of Greece. They are not content, with 
the public new^s, they would know every thing of the 
private life of those whom they encounter. It is not 
rare to hear a Southern Italian ask his neighbor in a 
box at the theater the amount of his income, or a 
lady whom he does not know how many children she 
has, and whether she has hopes of more. The lan- 
guage easily lacks modesty ; it has the intrepidity of 
the old Latin in calling things by their names. When 
we reflect on the condition of this people at the mo- 
ment when it came from the hands of the Bourbons, 
w r e comprehend the characteristic words that slipped 



/ 



Rome, Italy, and the Council, 225 

from the illustrious Cavour in his mortal agony: 
u N~o siege; le lam. le lavi!" — wash, purify them! 
He was right ; it is indeed a regenerating bath that 
the Italians of the South need. The bath has begun 
with the diffusion of public education, which has 
carried its budget for the old kingdom of Naples up 
from about $10,000 to about $180,000, and which 
lias every-where organized courses of evening lectures. 
The disappearance of a large number of convents in 
consequence of the sale of the ecclesiastical estates is 
likewise a benefit ; for those idle monks, who shot up 
in all the country as in ancient Spain, served only to 
maintain ignorance and false devotion. But the 
great instrument of regeneration would be the propa- 
gation of the pure Gospel, which alone can reach the 
evil at its root by renewing conscience. Let us 
glance at what has been done in this particular. 

It would seem that, when the barriers reared by 
Catholic absolutism had fallen, and freedom of con- 
science had become the law of the land, the preach- 
ing of the pure Gospel would have the most rapid 
success. It has not been so, because precisely the 
first effect of the former administration was pro- 
foundly to shake that moral basis on which alone 
Christianity can build. It is a great error to imagine 
that outward circumstances have a preponderating 
influence on religious development. The Christian 
Church won its finest conquests under the yoke of 
the Roman tyranny, because it encountered a well 
prepared soil; because if the evil was great, it was 
truly felt, and the aspirations of men's hearts antici- 
pated the Gospel. It was the same in the sixteenth 
century, which surely was not an age of free con- 
science. The Reform grew and conquered under 

15 



226 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

the most tyrannical rule that can be imagined. It 
also found a predisposition in the hearts of men. It 
came at its hour, and a spark sufficed to kindle up an 
immense flame. This moral predisposition for evan- 
gelization did not exist in Southern Italy. No doubt 
it was in many hearts, for in a more or less latent 
manner it is in the soul of every man ; but no breath 
of evangelical inspirations had passed over this soft 
and frivolous people. Individuals might be won by 
Christian preaching, but the masses were not then 
capable of being stirred. Men have been forced to 
abate their early hopes. Naples has long had a Swiss 
chapel, which has ever been a focus of religious life. 
M. Valette, one of its first pastors, had acquired a 
great and legitimate influence, but it could only be 
exercised in a limited circle. He had not even leave 
to visit the hospital of Swiss Protestant soldiers, who 
would have desired the succor of his ministry. After 
the annexation every thing was changed. There w T as 
a moment when people might hope for a reformatory 
movement. Father Gavazzi, an old Dominican, 
preached in the streets to large multitudes, who dis- 
played the liveliest enthusiasm. He was an orator 
after the heart of this ardent and mobile people. He 
spoke with that expressive pantomime which pleases 
them, in imaginative, picturesque language, sprinkled 
with daring metaphors, and biting and violent re- 
marks. He blended politics with religion, and thun- 
dered vehement invectives at the Bourbons and the 
monks. The danger of such preaching is, that it 
draws the attention of the audience wholly to contro- 
versy, and runs great risk of seeing them withdraw 
whenever it shall turn to great Christian themes, and 
no longer be seasoned with those high spices which 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 227 

please southern palates. Thus it fared with Father 
Gavazzi. He did not long keep up his fire at Naples. 
The Marquis of Cresi, a Neapolitan, who was won 
over to the Gospel before the Revolution, conducted 
a more serious work. He established regular worship 
in Naples itself, and with certain foreign aid organized 
a system of colportage which was entirely suited to 
this period of commencement. The Marquis of 
Cresi had the advantage of belonging to the nation 
which was to be gained to the Gospel, of understand- 
ing it well, and speaking its tongue. For some time 
he had real success. A committee on Italian evan- 
gelization was founded to encourage these efforts. 
Public discourses on religious themes were held in 
its name, and collected quite numerous audiences. 
A Wesley an work was likewise begun. The Vaudois 
Church of Piedmont had hastened to plant its stand- 
ard at Naples. Evangelical schools were opened for 
the people. Things then wore their best aspect ; they 
were full of hope. The middle classes themselves 
seemed disposed to follow the movement ; they throng- 
ed to the evening discourses, the schools were filled. 
Unhappily sad divisions broke out among the directors 
of these different efforts. Christians of Italian origin 
could not bend to the rules of the Vaudois Church. 
Thence arose struggles which became envenomed, 
which degenerated into quarrels, and which unhap- 
pily became public in the sequel of the foundation of 
a journal representing the Italian element, with great 
violence of language. The Marquis of Cresi soon left 
Naples quite discouraged. The discourses for men 
ended. There only remained the Vaudois Church 
and the "Wesleyans ; the former scarcely collected fifty 
auditors. The schools, happily, are full of prosperity. 



228 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

They gather up more than five hundred children, 
and the efforts of the Directing Committee of the 
Work of Evangelization are concentrated on them. 
This is the result of the first missionary campaign at 
Naples. It is far from brilliant. Elsewhere Italian 
evangelization has had better success, as I shall have 
occasion to inform you when I shall have collected ex- 
act information. The Committee on Evangelization 
does not mean to discontinue its labors ; on the con- 
trary, it intends to renew them with fresh zeal. The 
prosperity of the schools is very encouraging. Bib- 
lical colportage grows more important as a taste 
for reading spreads. The discourses will no doubt 
be resumed ; but we must not be deceived, the great 
shock will not come thence for Italy. I have a like 
conviction respecting France. These efforts, which 
should be pursued with courage and perseverance, 
because they contribute to save souls, are not enough 
to produce one of those great currents which gives 
the Christian mission the impulsive force of the early 
days. The plowshare of God must pass over these 
Latin lands — light and brilliant lands, where the seed 
of eternal life only slightly penetrates the soil. The 
furrow must be plowed deep, and it will be, do not 
doubt that, by the great crises which will not be 
lacking at the close of this stormy century. Modern 
society must learn what it costs to reject the Divine 
Idea, and abandon itself to Pantheistic Naturalism. 
It will know the worth of a democracy without God, 
and the disasters to which it leads. On the other 
hand, Catholicism is charged to wage the most incisive 
controversy against herself by her own excesses. But 
these evolutions will not be accomplished without 
laceration and sorrow. Now our Europe needs pre- 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 229 

cisely these sorrows to awaken her Christian aspira- 
tions and rear her altar, if not to the unknown God, 
at least to the forgotten God. Then the evangelical 
mission, finding a well-prepared soil, watered with 
tears, and perhaps, alas ! with blood, will be able to 
extend its labors and its conquests as it has not yet 
done, and the reformatory movement will resume its 
course, as in the sixteenth century, for the salvation 
of modern humanity. I know^ no other salvation 
for it. 

I should be grieved were the preceding reflections 
to discourage existing evangelical labors. It is a 
great thing to be even an obscure link in that chain 
of pure faith which is never to be interrupted. At 
certain periods, Christianity finds itself like a railway 
train before a mountain ; it must tunnel the mountain. 
The position of those employed in the work lacks ap- 
parent grandeur and splendor ; but let them be con- 
soled, the obscure tunnel leads to richer plains; it 
was a defile necessary to pass. This is our history for 
the moment on the European continent. Let us be 
resigned to our mission ; the important thing is to, 
fulfill it in the name of God. 

II. Permit me now to use the freedom .of corre- 
spondence and pass to an entirely different subject. It 
is no longer of the Naples of the present time that I 
would converse, but of antique Naples — of that volup- 
tuous paganism the decline of which we learn to 
know on these charming coasts better than elsewhere, 
and whose prestige and dangerous beauty make us 
the better appreciate the grandeur and the difficulty 
of the conquests of Christianity. And first, how can 
we refuse to recall in a few words the framework, still 
the same, of a picture which has changed less at bot- 



230 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

torn than people would think, for in many regards it 
has preserved its pagan coloring. There is no con- 
trast more marked than that between the scenery of 
Naples and the scenery of Rome. It is not that grand 
sadness, that majesty of immense mourning, which 
wraps you in melancholy ; on the contrary it is the 
most ravishing unfolding of an eternal spring which 
nothing can destroy, and whose smile cheers even the 
ruins of a crumbled world. Contemplate the gra- 
cious curves of its shores, that seem fondly sketched; 
those softly rounded gulfs kissed by the azure wave ; 
those islands scattered, each a paradise, on the sea 
whose infinite perspectives they soften and limit ; that 
gay, luxuriant vegetation, where the striking fruits 
of the South ripen among olive-trees and rounded 
pines ! See those cupolas of verdure, those orange- 
trees and lemon-trees that perfume the breeze! You 
will then comprehend the full seduction of nature 
here. There is not under heaven a more dangerous 
Armida, or one that presents man a more intoxica- 
ting cup. Asia Minor doubtless has some Edens 
comparable with this, but the waves which bathe her 
are often terrible — they are transports that speak of 
death. Greece has outlines of equal grace, but their 
contours are firmer; we might say that they were 
drawn with the great art of Phidias ; at Naples we 
are rather reminded of the chisel of Praxiteles. They 
who would enjoy the complete vision of that incom- 
parable scenery should follow the route from Castel- 
lamare to Sorrento, between the picturesque hills and 
the coast, with its infinite sinuosities, which projects 
its magnificent olives and its gardens of orange-trees 
above the blue waters, and is incessantly cut into 
capes and scooped out into gulfs. From the heights 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 231 

which overlook Sorrento the horizon extends from 
Cape Misenus to Vesuvius, and includes all the grace 
and magnificence of the country. The pole has often 
been called the throne of winter. I shall place that 
of summer on the summit of the Camaldulas. It is 
not jet the terrible sovereign that scorches Africa ; 
it has all the splendors of that sovereign without his 
flames. It has poured out its largess over these daz- 
zling plains which we see at our feet; its mantle of 
gilded and purple harvests surrounds the mountain, 
and its joy breaks forth on the purple sea. It was 
truly in these places that the religion of nature found 
its chosen sanctuary and shed its final splendor; it 
was there that, in the eve of the ancient world, it de- 
sired to taste its final inebriation and crown itself 
with roses in a feast that combined all pleasures. 
People may reply by pointing me to Vesuvius, whose 
smoke rises in the blue heavens like an eternal men- 
ace of destruction — as if to suggest every moment that 
the least thrill of its burning entrails would suffice to 
ravage and destroy all these wonders. Does it not rise 
from the mass of ruins accumulated at its foot, like 
a glutted lion among the bones of its victims ? But 
who does not know that the ancients loved to com- 
bine images of death with those of voluptuousness, 
and that they sometimes made a skeleton preside 
over their orgies — not that they might grow wiser, 
but hasten to enjoy, and, as the poet of Epicurean- 
ism said, Pluck the rapid moment as we pluck the 
quickly withering flower whose full fragrance we 
would inhale ! 

There existed, then, a pre-established harmony 
between this enchanting land and the declining pa- 
ganism which was developed here in all its splendor 



232 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

and in a morbid bloom. Nowhere can we study it 
better than in this Neapolitan country. In Greece, 
we have eyes only for the ruins of art in its great 
period ; at Rome, what rules is the ideal of power, 
unconquerable energy, the ineffaceable mark of the 
talon of the eagle, which embraced and consumed 
the world. We have seen at Naples that effeminate 
paganism which no longer believes in itself, w T hich 
has but one God, pleasure, and which seeks in these 
brilliant waves a less somber and bitter Lethe than 
that of the realm of shades ; it is Epicurean pagan- 
ism, the last word of antiquity at the moment when 
the Cross was planting its austere symbol in the face 
of all these refinements of a corrupt civilization 
which exhausted the treasures of the world in grati- 
fying its lusts. The Museum at Naples, and espe- 
cially Pompeii, evokes under our eyes this paganism 
of the second period, if I may call it so ; it presents 
itself to us with all its distinctive features. The ex- 
cavations of Pompeii have been prosecuted with* 
redoubled energy since the annexation. Every day 
new houses arise from the ground with their frescos 
and mosaics. These artistic treasures produce very 
different effects under their natal sun and in the hall 
of a museum. Temples, forums, private houses, 
shops, villas, theaters, circus, every thing lives agai$ 
as fresh as it w r as eighteen centuries since ; this is 
not pagan life arranged and embellished as in pagan 
literature, which always selects from the diverse ele- 
ments of reality ; no, here is the complete reality of 
pagan life, reappearing in its nakedness, undisguised, 
unvailed, with a frequently fearful sincerity and 
cynicism. On the walls we still read gross inscrip- 
tions which reveal defiled imaginations. Death en- 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 233 

tered the city, like the thief in the Gospel, in the 
hours of night ; it had no time to make its funeral 
arrangements. It is there before us as it was in its 
every-day life, with its elegance and its vice ; it en- 
ables us to grasp an entire epoch in itself, whose con- 
fession it brings to us from the moment that it shook 
off its ashes. Completing what we see at Pompeii 
with the masterpieces heaped up in the Museum of 
Naples, we have a perfect image of Greco-Roman 
paganism at the advent of Jesus Christ, minus the 
more elevated side of its sadness and its aspirations, 
which was kept in the shade by the ease and charms 
of existence in sweet and fertile Campania. 

What impresses me in this Neapolitan or Pom- 
peiian paganism is, that the position of honor is there 
accorded to divinities of the second order, especially 
to those that favor pleasure, Yenus and Bacchus. It 
has made an Olympus to its own taste, where pleasure 
reigns sovereign. There we do not find the Jupiter 
•of Homer, who, changeful and passionate as he is, 
has gleams of justice and moral grandeur, like a 
Greek of the heroic age. Still less do we find there 
the Jupiter whose noble and proud image had been 
sculptured by Phidias, 

"The great Immortal whom the blessed praise," 

according to the sublime verse of Pindar. The fa- 
vorites of this abased religion are the goddess of 
beauty and the god of wine. The Neapolitan Yenus 
is not that proud divinity who expels or sets aside 
evil passions with her ideal beauty ; the Yenus of 
Milo, compared with the Callyjuga, is like a Madonna 
of ancient art. She who was adored in Campania is 
a ravishing woman, but a dangerous beauty. The 



234 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

marble palpitates ; Pygmalion has animated his 
statue with the culpable fire which consumes him. 
The Pompeiian Bacchus recalls in nothing the mys- 
teries celebrated under the name of that god, which 
had a deep meaning. He is purely and simply the 
the god of the bacchanals, crowned with vine-leaves; 
the pupil of old Silenus, who is also reproduced with 
favor. The great mythological legend is constantly 
sacrificed to piquant or sentimental anecdote : Venus 
lamenting Adonis ; Diana ravished before Endym- 
ion, or indeed chastising Acteon ; Leda and her swan, 
the carrying away of Europa, the abandonment of 
Ariadne. These are the favorite subjects in the Pom- 
peiian frescos, often treated with much grace and 
feeling, but sometimes w 7 ith libertinage. Genre 
work every-where replaces high art ; it is not the 
ideal of which they strive to afford a glimpse, it is 
reality that they like to evoke for the gratification of 
the eyes. The Pompeiian paintings show a great 
predilection for the combats of gladiators ; in this 
they are fully in harmony with the morals of the 
times. For declining paganism, the gladiator was 
what the hero was for ancient Greece. The bloodv 
games of the circus had replaced the sublime dramas 
of JEschylus and Sophocles. It has always been re- 
marked that voluptuousness loves blood ; the soul 
relaxed by guilty pleasures is animated only by the 
spectacle of suffering, and cruelty alone can make its 
unstrung fibers vibrate. In the Museum at Naples 
we see a great many gladiatorial suits of armor, which, 
in their beauty and ornaments, resemble the armor 
of knights in the Middle Ages. I have also encoun- 
tered in the Pom peiian^ frescos the images of several 
slaves loaded w T ith burdens. I found likewise at 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 235 

Naples a striking type of ancient slavery in a very 
fine bit of sculpture, which represents the giant 
Atlas bearing the world on his robust shoulders. 
The figure is noble and hopeless ; it breathes weari- 
ness and vast sorrow. It is truly the type of those 
millions of men who were regarded as outside and 
below society, toward whom any thing was permitted, 
as Seneca said, who bore up by their obstinate labor 
that world of elegance and pleasure which lived by 
their sweat. Impure gods, gladiators, and slaves ! 
did not the Greco-Roman w^orld rest on these three 
pillars w r hen it grew feeble and was decaying in its 
own corruption? The little temple of Isis at Pom- 
peii suggests that invasion of foreign and Oriental 
religions to which paganism in its desperation had 
recourse. But in reality this w^as not a foreign re- 
ligion, for Isis, as the goddess of Ephesus, of whom 
the Museum at Naples possesses a very fine statue, 
was ever the great goddess, Nature, who replaced 
all other gods in a debasing pantheism. 

What Pompeii especially reveals is the inside of 
the pagan home, domestic life. Nothing less re- 
sembles a family hearth than these charming abodes, 
with their porticoes, peristyles, gardens surrounded 
with columns, their triclinium surcharged with orna- 
ments. Every thing is for show, elegant idleness, 
sumptuous repasts, and pompous, though never nu- 
merous, receptions. The dwelling-rooms are little, 
voluptuously decorated boudoirs, arranged in two 
rows, and forming two parallel passages around the 
atrium and the garden; they are solely intended for 
sleep, and are only looked upon as accessories. Domes- 
tic life did not exist. The frescos that adorn the walls 
acquaint us with the life led there. We witness the 



236 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

toilet of the great Roman lady surrounded . by her 
slaves ; we can count the vases of perfumery which 
she used. We behold family repasts in their scarcely 
chaste freedom. The dancing women who figure in 
ceremonial feasts are represented to us in their light 
and provoking grace. Still further, we are intro- 
duced behind the scenes of a theater, where they are 
getting up the spectacle ; and into the house of the 
tragic poet, at the moment when he is about to recite 
his new productions. Excellent art, though at Pom- 
peii it seems to have been a good copyist, adorned 
these pleasure-houses of a middle class whose fortunes 
must have been moderate. For them were wrought 
those fauns, dancing, sleeping, or plunged in intoxica- 
tion, whose attitude is rendered with such astonishing 
suppleness in that little Narcissus with his delicate 
grace of self-intoxication, and especially that tired 
Mercury, who has all the somewhat painful careless- 
ness of lassitude ; for these abodes were painted the 
ravishing frescos of Ulysses disclosing himself to Pe- 
nelope, the sacrifice of Ipbigenia, whose pathos is so 
affecting, and those three Graces, whose serene beauty 
not the pencil of Raphael has surpassed. It is at 
Pompeii, too, that we read a frightful commentary 
on the picture which Saint Paul has traced of the 
infamies of the Roman decline, of that fondled and 
insatiable voluptuousness which, seeking the infinite 
in sensual life, found only the monstrous. 

Art extended its domain on all sides. It could 
give an elegant form to the utensils of ordinary life. 
Lamps, pottery, and jewels received its seal. The 
pagan of that period would have all his senses flat- 
tered at once. It is but too easy to find the explana- 
tion of this whollv brilliant and infamous life in the 



Home, Italy, and the Council. 237 

papyri discovered in the ashes of the destroyed city, 
and which are unrolled to be deciphered by the most 
ingenious processes. They are all treatises of Epicu- 
rean philosophy. This philosophy, more surely than 
the flames and ashes of Vesuvius, was to destroy the 
society that had surrendered itself to it, crying, " Let 
us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we 
die!" 

It is after such spectacles that we admire the moral 
power which made the cross triumph not only over 
the Csesar of Rome, but the Yenus of Naples ; which 
purified the pagan abode, and created the Christian 
home ; which finally made the lily of purity grow up 
amid such slime. To conquer brutal force was much, 
but it was more difficult still to subdue the syren ot 
this gulf, and the enchantments of a refined voluptu- 
ousness, which was the conclusion and the prestige 
of Greco-Roman paganism. 

E. de Pressense. 



238 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTEE X. 

RECENT EXCAVATIONS AT ROME — THE PALACE OF 
THE CAESARS AND THE CATACOMBS. 

Napoleon III. and Archaeology — Signor di Rossi — The Late and the 
Present Aspect of the Palace of the Caesars — Temple of Jupiter 
Stator — Cicero's House — Two Frescos — Christian Relics in the Pal- 
ace — Importance of Christian Archaeology — Nature of its Disclosures 
— Rossi's Roma Sotteranea — Bosio's Explorations — Arringhi and 
Marchi — Rossi's Method — The Catacombs used for Burial, not Wor- 
ship — Three Periods in their History — Dates of Monuments — Chris- 
tian and Pagan Burial — Symbols of the Christian Tombs — The Cata- 
comb of Saint Callistus — Callistus Himself — Visit to the Catacomb 
— The Consecration of Labor — Testimony of the Catacombs on Ca- 
tholicism and Protestantism, the Primacy of Peter, the Adoration 
of Mary, the Sacraments, the State of the Dead, the Invocation of 
Saints, the Canonical Books, and Image Worship. 

Rome, December, 1869. 

When the Council shall open it will be hard for me 
to speak of any thing else than what may be learned 
of its deliberations, or of the spirit of its members. 
I take advantage, then, of the few days that remain 
before the solemn inauguration of the High Assembly 
to converse with you on a subject which well deserves 
to occupy the attention of the friends of science, and 
of all who take an interest in Christian antiquity : I 
mean the truly magnificent discoveries made of late 
years in the domain of profane and sacred archaeology. 
Let us first speak of the former. 

Follow me to the hill which overlooks the Forum 
on the right. It is the famous Mont Palatine, the 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 239 

cradle of antique Rome, which was to her like the 
pompous tomb where an oriental Mug desired to die 
surrounded with all his luxury and voluptuousness ; 
for there arose the palace of the Caesars; there was 
that colossal orgy of the imperial decline organized, 
in which was spent all the force and energy of the 
conquerors of the world. Some years ago this illus- 
trious spot was marked only by a few shapeless ruins. 
There people admired one of the finest views in Rome, 
the Forum, the Colosseum, the mountains of Latium 
and Albania, then the immense plain ending in the 
countless domes of modern Rome. But it was only 
in imagination that people could represent to them- 
selves the magnificence which had been displayed on 
these places, and for which the treasures of the world 
had been exhausted. Within ten years all this has 
changed ; the wand of an enchanter has evoked 
the past before us. This wand is nothing but the 
intelligent will of the French Emperor, served by a 
skillful Roman archaeologist, Signor de Rossi, w 7 ho 
has pursued these excavations with equal talent and 
energy. He has needed both, for the Roman Court 
has more than once seized on the precious opportunity 
to be disagreeable to its mighty and inconvenient 
protector. But the Emperor Napoleon III. clung to 
his project. It is well known that he feels a very 
lively interest in Roman antiquity, to which he has 
devoted a considerable book, " The Life of Cesar." 
He is not merely guided in this taste by love for 
science, but by a sort of moral affinity, which like- 
wise he openly avows, with the General who crossed 
the Rubicon and founded the Empire. He sees in 
him the type of those providential men, as he calls 
them, who save society as he thinks by placing them- 



24:0 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

selves above the laws. His historv of Caesar, and his 
liking for that period, remind me of a quite piquant 
anecdote which is found in the History of Pius VII. 
by Chevalier Artaud. He relates that Cocault, Min- 
ister Plenipotentiary of France at Rome under the 
Consulate and Empire, conversing one day with Na- 
poleon I. on the Caesars of Rome, his mighty com- 
panion grew angry with Tacitus, and accused him of 
having calumniated Nero, Caligula, and Domitian. 
" Kindred minds, kindred minds," replied Cocault ; a 
bold speech, which attributed his defense of the Ro- 
man Empire to a moral likeness. Napoleon under- 
stood, smiled, and showed no ill will to his sprightly 
embassador. We may apply this remark to the taste 
of the Emperor Napoleon III. for all that relates to 
the family of the Caesars, without forgetting that if he 
has drawn from them his liking for personal govern- 
ment, he has left to them its useless rigor; and that, 
apart from critical moments when nothing arrests 
him, he is the mildest of men. Whatever may be 
his motives, he has nevertheless rendered an im- 
mense service to science in causing the active prose- 
cution of the excavations of Mont Palatine, which 
daily lead to new discoveries. 

At first glance it seems as if nothing had been 
changed. You have before you only the ordinary 
entrance to a Roman villa. But hardly have you 
mounted the staircase when the scene changes. You 
are at the heart of Roman history. Descend again 
on the right, toward the Colosseum; you are on the 
spot where a rabble of brigands constituted them- 
selves a nation, invoked the gods, believed in its for- 
tune, and began by petty conquests of the surround- 
ing tribes that invading movement which was only 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 241 

to pause at the limits of the known world. We are 
confounded at the contrast between the humble origin 
of Rome and the unheard-of extent of its dominion. 
It was merely a stronghold at first ; the eye at once 
measures its area. They have found the shapeless 
ruins of the temple of Jupiter Stator, which was 
reared in gratitude for the first victory of Romulus. 
From the start, the religion of the Romans bore a 
wholly material and local character. It honored the 
gods only for services rendered ; these were to labor 
for their advantage as well as in their pay. They 
also honored only agricultural and warlike divinities. 
They needed wheat and victory. Such is the basis 
of their worship, addressed in reality to themselves, 
for they had made their religion a sort of historic 
memento of their success. Mankind never knew 
greater utilitarians. If you descend the hill on the 
left of the Capitoline side you will have before you 
the rich habitations of the Roman aristocracy at the 
close of the Republic, and at the beginning of the 
Empire. Here are the remains of the house of 
Cicero, who could almost perceive from his abode 
the tribune which was his throne. Every thing here 
has larger dimensions than at Pompeii. The houses 
were spacious, and might suffice for the luxury of 
that corrupt period. The bridge has been found 
which Caligula caused to be thrown from the Pala- 
tine to the Forum, so that they could pass directly 
from the Palace of the Caesars to the Curia, and note 
the promptness with which the Senate obeyed direc- 
tions. In this place we see the ruins of a city, and 
not merely of a private edifice. If we now place 
ourselves on the summit of the Palatine we are posi- 
tively before the Palace of the Csesars. It has sprung 

16 



242 Rome, Italy, akd the Council. 

out of the ground with all its principal dispositions 
which disclose themselves to the eyes in an incontest- 
able manner. Two magnificent columns of white 
marble mark the position of the grand portico which 
preceded the Palace. This portico opened first upon 
the basilica of Jupiter, where justice was adminis- 
tered, and which in these places produces the effect 
of a frightful irony. It is of itself a considerable edi- 
fice. Beside the basilica, and parallel with it, is the 
Palace itself, properly so called. The atrium leads 
into a vast reception-hall. Then comes the peristyle, 
which ends in the triclinium, the shameful theater 
of imperial gluttony. On the right is the nympheum, 
intended as a bath. It is an elegant hall, where 
every thing is calculated to please the senses. The 
triclinium is followed by the library and academy, 
devoted to rhetorical declamations. In the garden 
are found the sites of several temples. 

Close beside the Palace of the Csesars a patrician 
house has been discovered, which still bears the im- 
press of the noble simplicity of the Republic. The 
ornamentation is in exquisite taste and soberly ele- 
gant. This discovery has brought to light one of the 
finest frescos of ancient painting: it represents Io 
between Argus and Mercury ; the young maiden is 
touching and chaste in her beauty, the glance of 
Argus has the fixedness of an implacable guardian. 
Mercury is a winged creature whose foot hardly 
grazes the earth; the color has retained its vivacity. 
Pompeii has no painting superior to this masterpiece. 
I do not even know whether it possesses one which 
can be put in the same rank. Another fresco, found 
beside the former, has a peculiar interest ; it gives us 
the aspect of a street in Rome at the close of the 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 243 

Republic. We see a woman coming out of her house 
in ceremonial costume, probably for some sacrifice. 
She is followed by the solicitous glances of the mem- 
bers of her family, who are placed on the balcony of 
an upper story, while two slaves consider her through 
a window of the lower story. This is a perfect 
revelation concerning the arrangement of Roman 
houses. Unless I am mistaken, the balcony is a true 
discovery. We can now perfectly conceive a street 
in Rome as it was eighteen centuries ago. As the 
excavations are actively pushed forward, they daily 
discover some new site, some statue, some shaft of a 
column, or some jewels. Yet few objects are found 
intact. We can very well understand that rapacity 
would fling itself on the Palace, where it was well 
known that all the riches of the world were heaped 
up. Thanks to the statues and the innumerable busts 
of the Vatican and the Capitol, it is very easy to re- 
people it. Every Emperor appears with his own 
physiognomy, and Tacitus restores life to this dead 
past ; his terrible graver traces under our eyes those 
scenes of horror wherein insatiable voluptuousness 
is combined with a not less eager cruelty ; where the 
madness of omnipotence had its furious fits ; where 
humanity might learn what monsters she is capable 
of producing. Here should we read afresh that his- 
tory of blood, and it is with this great avenger of the 
human conscience that we should traverse these 
accursed places. 

Strange fact ! among the ruins of the imperial 
palace certain Christian memorials have been discov- 
ered belonging to the early ages of the Church ; among 
the rest, one of those little funeral lamps, adorned 
with evangelical symbols, which were carried among 



24:4 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

the Catacombs. This need not astonish us. Saint Paul 
tells us that his bonds had become known in the 
pretorium, and even in Caesar's Palace. Thus, while 
the persecuting Emperor fancied that he had annihi- 
lated an odious sect by his cruelty, it was growing up 
in his own Palace, and with^t that moral power 
which was to overturn the world which he so faith- 
fully represents. 

I do not speak of other discoveries which have been 
made in late years, particularly at Ostia, where admi- 
rable statues have been found. I shall have occasion 
to speak, when describing the Catacombs, of the 
excavations on the site where the temple of the 
Arvolles brethren arose. I have aimed to draw your 
attention to the most capital of the arch geological 
labors of these late years. This fruitful excavation 
of the Palace of the Caesars is a considerable event 
for science, and it will doubtless provoke numerous 
and important publications. 

II. I come now to Christian archaeology, which 
has especially occupied my time at Rome. I had 
important information to require from it for the last 
part of my History of the First Three Centuries of 
the Church, which will turn on the development of 
Christianity at the family fireside and in the primi- 
tive worship. The Fathers of that age, no doubt, 
cast vivid light on this theme. But the Christian 
necropolis restores it to life ; it gives what books never 
give, an intuition of the past ; it in some sort makes 
us their contemporaries. How often under the som- 
ber arches of the Catacombs, before some mutilated 
fresco, have I seemed to leap over ages, and mingle 
with the affected multitude that had just deposited 
the ashes of some confessor in these places ! What 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 245 

forms the great interest of the Catacombs is, that we 
there find not merely the expression of the piety of 
the chiefs of the Church — her bishops or theologians — 
an expression which has always taken on a more or 
less literary form : here you glean up the ingenu- 
ous testimony of popular faith. A father has lost a 
son and repeats his affection and his hope ; a wife 
laments her husband, a brother his brother, a 
friend his friend, and all together the courageous 
confessor who perished under the tooth of the lion 
or the sword of the executioner. The Christian 
heart reveals its true nature on these somber walls 
in some thrilling fresco, some rapid touch, or in some 
brief word, and does it in that funeral hour, great 
among all hours, when, broken by sorrow, it exhales 
its deepest sighs as a crushed flower yields its 
sweetest perfumes. The Catacomb, thus interpreted, 
gives us that every-day history — that history of the 
lowly and humble — which in general is forgotten for 
pompous parade, and which is the very tissue of 
human condition in all times. 

I had already come to Rome, fifteen years ago, to 
undertake this fruitful study ; but since then the dis- 
coveries in this domain have been so considerable that 
Christian archaeology has been entirely renewed. I 
have been able to fully acquaint myself with the 
present state of this science, to which sufficient im- 
portance has not yet been attached, thanks to the 
Roma Sotteranea of Signor Rossi — a large work of 
which two volumes in folio have appeared — and thanks 
chiefly to visits made in his own company to the Cat- 
acombs. Permit me first to render homage to this 
illustrious scholar and the invaluable services which 
he has rendered the history of the Church. We can- 



2±6 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

not attribute the precious results of his researches to 
the happy success of suddenly lucky excavations; for 
the new excavations have only been successful through 
the admirable method with which they have been 
begun and pursued. Doubtless Signor di Rossi had 
predecessors. Bosio, in the seventeenth century, 
first directed his attention to these Christian burial- 
places, which had been forgotten for centuries. He 
had collected in the Acts of the Saints all their infor- 
mation relating to them, and had traced out an 
inventory of future researches — a plan of discoveries 
to be made. His book is still exceedingly valuable. 
He had gone to work, not by directing excavations 
properly so called, but by striving to penetrate the 
Catacombs through all accessible openings, and care- 
fully describing all that he had seen with his own 
eyes. He more than once risked his life in these 
dangerous researches ; he repeatedly lost his way, and 
passed three days without light or food in some of 
those infinitely meandering subterranean passages. I 
have read with emotion this courageous inquirer's 
name, traced by himself in the Catacomb of Doini- 
tella. On more than one point his indications have 
proved erroneous, but he opened the breach. In the 
eighteenth century the Catacombs were excavated 
anew by Arringhi, w T ho wished to continue the studies 
of Bosio ; but he worked hap-hazard and without 
method, and, unhappily, he pillaged and destroyed in 
his imprudent researches more than one catacomb 
whose primitive state we can now no longer conceive. 
In our times Father Marchi, of the Roman College, 
has certainly laid open the way for di Rossi ; his 
works on the Christian architecture of the Catacombs 
are valuable ; his descriptions of the structure of the 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 247 

Catacomb of Saint Agnes deserve to be read. He 
showed in an irrefutable style, as I think, that we 
must not confound the Christian cemeteries with the 
quarries or sand-pits of the pagans — that the former 
w T ere arranged the reverse of what the quarrying 
of stone or any other industrial labor would have 
required — that their narrow passages were arranged 
solely for burial. Unhappily, Father Marchi lacked 
a truly critical method, and he fixed at hazard the 
dates of monuments. Thus the honor of having com- 
pletely founded the science of the Catacombs recurs 
fully to Signor di Rossi. 

I shall give you a rapid glance at his way of pro- 
ceeding ; then I shall relate the general results of his 
investigations, and finally, I shall associate you with 
my visits to subterranean Rome, a sure means of 
not transforming my letter into an archaeological trea- 
tise. Signor di Rossi had recourse to all the still 
existing means of information for determining the 
location of the Catacombs. Unhappily, the capital 
document has perished. Saint Augustine informs 
us that on occasion of the quarrel with the Donatists, 
an exact catalogue was prepared of all places of 
worship or burial which had belonged to the ortho- 
dox Christians of the preceding period, and which 
had been destroyed in the persecution of Diocletian, 
together with the Sacred Books and chronicles of 
every Church. Had this document been regained, 
the topography of the Christian section of Rome 
would be fixed. Signor di Rossi consults, with the 
greatest care, the ancient calendars which connect the 
churches with the names of martyrs, the martyrolo- 
gies, the lives and acts of the Pontiffs, and the ancient 
topographies of Rome; but he does it with rare 



248 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

sagacity, applying the great methods of modern 
criticism to these documents, often surcharged with 
legends. He rightly thinks that it is as needful to 
know how to discern truth blended with error as to 
reject error blended with truth. As especial guides, 
he has taken the itineraries of the old pilgrims who 
had come to Rome when the Catacombs were still 
open to devotion, and which marked with great exact- 
ness the sites of the holy places they had visited. 
Thus he found, in the sequel of a book by Alcuin, 
quite a detailed itinerary of two pilgrims from Saltz- 
burg, who had come to Rome to visit the Catacombs, 
and especially that of Saint Callistus. Their indica- 
tions were very precise. They told by what gate 
they went out, how far they were from the tomb of 
the celebrated Metellus, With this itinerary in hand, 
Signor di Rossi went to these places, and he only saw 
a vineyard and a garden. The first impression might 
well make him despair. Yet he was not discouraged ; 
he caused excavations to be made in the vineyard desig- 
nated. Judge of his delight when, after a few days' 
labor, he saw appearing one of the vastest Catacombs 
of Rome, that of Callistus, where Saint Cecilia was 
buried. I shall hereafter speak of the archaeological 
treasures which this underground cemetery contains, 
when I come to narrate the visits I made to it with 
the illustrious archaeologist. I will first sum up the 
explanations which he gave me concerning the places 
themselves, and which bring before us the general 
results of Ins discoveries, consigned to his great book, 
u Roma Sotteranea" We should distinguish three 
periods in the history of the Catacombs : the first is 
that of persecution, when they served for the burial 
of the martyrs, and for the interment of simple Chris- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 249 

tians who loved to repose near those glorious confessors 
of Christ. Worship was then but rarely celebrated 
there, and only in moments of violent persecution. 
The second period begins with the peace of the 
Church. For nearly a century the subterranean 
burials continued, though in restricted numbers. 
The Catacombs became essentially a place of pil- 
grimage. Saint Jerome has eloquently described 
the impression which he experienced on descending 
into that sacred night, and contemplating the burial- 
places of confessors. Unhappily, every thing was 
sacrificed to this new destination ; the bishops of 
Rome caused vast staircases to be constructed to 
lead to the most celebrated crypts ; they enlarged 
the passages around them, and even added inscrip- 
tions to the primitive inscriptions. Thus they con- 
siderably changed the aspect of the subterranean 
cemetery ; and to grasp it in its primitive condition, 
it is needful to go back beyond the embellishments 
of the period of peace. It is here that a sagacious 
criticism has a chance for development. Signor di 
Rossi believes that he has discovered sure signs for 
determining the dates of the symbols. He has been 
able to collect a large number of dated inscriptions, 
and to group them according to their dates ; he has 
formed classes and families ; thus a type shows itself 
which permits the classification of other inscriptions. 
For example, the monogram of Constantine, barred 
crosses, is found only since his time. The ancient 
inscriptions are of excellent calligraphy — very fine 
and perfectly simple. The Christian inscription 
becomes surcharged from the time of the peace of 
the Church ; it grows more detailed, more human, 
dwells more on the part played by the defunct in 



250 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

his eartlilv life. The Greek characters are also an 
index of high antiquity. As to the symbols painted 
on the tombs, they are not numerous in the primitive 
times ; they mostly have a hidden, mystical sense, 
which is natural in times of persecution. The 
anchor, the dove, and the fish, occupy the principal 
place. The ornamentation of the early period is 
much finer and more classical than that of the times 
of peace. The same difference is remarked between 
these two types as between the Arch of Titus and 
that of Constantine. Signor di Rossi has not failed 
to consult even the bricks, for they bear their trade- 
mark and their date. When he finds them in large 
numbers of the same date, this is to him a certain in- 
dication of the epoch to which the structure belongs. 
It is by these diverse means that he strives to dis- 
tinguish between the monuments of primitive Chris- 
tianity and those of the following age. 

The third period of the history of the Catacombs 
is that of the invasion of the barbarians, who were in 
a rage with the Christian crypts as well as with the 
pagan temples. The popes completed what the 
barbarians had begun, though with a very different 
purpose. As far as possible, they had the sacred 
remains and the funeral ornaments carried away; 
then they closed the Catacombs. Visiting them was 
forbidden. During the night of the Middle Ages 
their memory gradually perished, save the small 
portion on which basilicas, like Saint Sebastian, were 
built. Without suspecting it, the Church of Rome 
for centuries had her finest monuments under her 
feet ; neither for science nor for piety did they exist. 
As I have already said, Bosio was the first who sought 
to regain this great past. I have explained how his 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 251 

successors rather harmed the progress of Christian 
archseology. To Signor di Rossi belongs the honor 
of having found his way in this vast and obscure 
labyrinth, amid the confusion of dates and of having 
borne thither the torch of a sure criticism. 

Let us in few words recall the origin of the Cata- 
comb. It is, properly speaking, a Christian institu- 
tion. The pagans knew nothing of this nature. 
First, with the exception of the Etruscans, who 
buried their dead and laid them in sarcophagi, the 
Romans and the Greeks burned corpses and gathered 
up their ashes into funereal urns. Most commonly 
the great families built them magnificent sepulchers, 
belonging solely to themselves. The columbaria were 
private property, and they only received the ashes 
of the freedmen of some illustrious house, but they 
had no relation to the Christian cwmeterium ; the 
slumbering together of the members of a spiritual 
family. The sole non-private burial that was known 
in antiquity was the species of common tomb near 
the Esquiline, where were flung the ashes of slaves 
and of men from the dregs of the people. Two Jew- 
ish Catacombs have indeed been discovered at Rome, 
one near the Via Portisa, which was also a common 
grave, and on the Appian Way another, much more 
ornate. But the latter seems to belong to a period 
posterior to the Christian Catacombs. It was truly 
the Gospel which inaugurated fraternity in death 
after having consecrated it in life. It loved to repeat, 
over the perishable dust of its followers, that in Christ 
there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave 
nor noble. The tomb of the martyrs is the center of 
the Catacomb ; near them all Christians loved indis- 
criminately to repose. The form of burial was bor- 



252 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

rowed from Judaism ; the disciple of Jesus desires 
to be like him in death as in life, hence he strives 
to repeat in his cwn burial what he knows of the 
burial of the Master. He was interred in a grotto ; 
the Christian also desires to repose in the bowels of 
the earth. In the Catacomb of Saint Agnes is found 
a closed grotto, which was certainly the earliest form 
of Christian burial. But it was soon needful to 
modify it in order to satisfy the necessities created 
by the great numbers of the proselytes. The Cata- 
comb w r as formed of several stories of narrow T pas- 
sages, in whose walls quadrangular openings w T ere 
pierced where corpses were deposited. They were 
closed up with slabs covered with stucco, on which a 
pious hand engraved the name of the defunct, an image 
of hope, a word of tenderness. When the burial of 
some martyr or eminent Christian took place, they 
gave an arched form to the sepulcher, and it was 
called an arwsolium. This arrangement allowed the 
multiplication of symbolical frescos. Sometimes they 
formed true chambers, or funeral chapels, with four 
arcosolia. 

The Christian Catacombs extended over an immense 
space, which corresponds perfectly with what the au- 
thors of that time tell us about the prodigious progress 
of the new religion. Did not Tertullian say to the 
pagans, " We are every-where. We fill your camps 
and your armies ; we are found even in the Palace of 
your Emperors ? " Persecution increased the Church 
instead of diminishing it. " It has a real charm," 
said Tertullian ; " the blood of the martyrs is the 
seed of the Church" — Sanguis martyrorum semen ec- 
clesioe. Yet the persecution was a great hinderance 
to the outward display of the proscribed worship. 






Rome, Italy, and the Council. 253 

People ask how it was possible for the Christians to 
excavate this subterranean city, with its vast propor- 
tions, under the sword of their executioners. Signor 
di Rossi has resolved this problem in the happiest 
manner. He has demonstrated, texts in hand, that 
the Emperors, always greatly opposed to associations 
among the citizens which might menace their despot- 
ism, had made a solitary exception in favor of funereal 
associations, which might monthly collect means to 
procure the interment of their members. The super- 
stitious ideas of the pagans concerning death, which 
led them to closely connect the destinies of the soul 
with those of the body, had evidently weighed in this 
unique point on the harsh and intractable imperial 
legislation. The Christians confined themselves to 
conformity with a custom, and made use of an exist- 
ing right. Signor di Rossi has found inscriptions 
which prove that they used forms of language analo- 
gous to those used by the pagans to designate their 
funereal associations. The latter called themselves 
cultores of the citizen who had made them a generous 
gift of land, or had granted them a large estate. The 
Christians were designated as cultores Yerbi — those 
who cultivate acquaintance with the Word. Funereal 
associations were styled fraternities. It was easy and 
pleasant for the members of the Church to assume a 
title which corresponded so well with their feelings. 
Signor di Rossi cites decisive texts, which show that 
these concessions had sometimes been withdrawn 
from the Christians by their persecutors to be ulti- 
timately restored to them, which establishes in an 
irrefragable way the fact of the primitive conces- 
sion. Thus a problem finds its solution which had 
long appeared insoluble. Signor di Rossi found a 



254: Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

material proof of his assertion in the excavations 
made in 1865, in the cemetery of Domitella, or of 
Achilles and Nerea. They found a splendid entrance 
to the Catacomb. On both sides of the door, stone 
benches are arranged with all that is required for the 
agape, a deep well, and a fountain. Now we know 
that the funereal associations were wont to celebrate a 
sort of solemn feast in memory of the dead. The 
Christians turned this repast into an agape, and thus 
conformed to custom, while modifying it according 
to the spirit of their religion, in order to preserve the 
right so dear to them of freely burying their dead. 
We may say that on this important point Signor di 
Rossi has brought his proofs to a demonstration. 

Christian burial is profoundly distinguished from 
pagan burial in the fact that the latter turns toward 
the past. It calls that past to mind in every way, and 
even strives to perpetuate the terrestrial life. Yiands 
are placed near the dead, his arms are at hand ; his 
honors and dignities are produced in a pompous in- 
scription. The pagan only turns his eyes with alarm 
to the somber region that opens before him beyond 
the tomb, and he seeks to project over that darkness, 
which is enlightened by no well-founded hope, the 
warm tints and colors of the sun of this world. He 
would have death like one of those fine snnsets which 
continue their brilliant farewells long after the star 
of day has disappeared. The Christian tomb, on 
the contrary, turns toward eternity and heaven ; 
what is behind is very pale and very wretched com- 
pared with what is ahead, and especially above. The 
soul's fatherland is beyond this abode of darkness and 
siu ; the true life is not exhaled with the last breath ; 
it has just begun, and this true life proceeds not from 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 255 

man, but from God ; it is the gift of Christ, the 
bloody and glorious prize of his sufferings. Such 
are the blessed certainties expressed by the funereal 
symbols of the Catacombs. The dove represents the 
happy soul which has flown away to God; the palm 
recounts its triumph ; and the anchor, which often 
assumes the form of a cross, expresses its invincible 
hope, and its point of support. The Alpha and 
Omega suggest that all these favors come from Christ, 
w^ho is the beginning and the end of salvation. Those 
simple words in pace suffice for the consolation of 
survivors. And especially in the early days all ac- 
cessory circumstances were neglected, all that con- 
cerned the earthly lives of their beloved friends. 
Were they rich or poor, illustrious warriors or slaves, 
— dignitaries in the Church ? No matter. The in- 
scription tells nothing of this ; they were Christians, 
and that was enough. There was no harsh and 
haughty stoicism in this ; no, for the heart speaks 
loudly over these tombs. Expressions of tenderness 
are very frequent. We light incessantly on the w T ord 
dulcissimus applied to the dead. Human and divine 
love and glorious hope, that is ail, but it is enough ; 
for this is all that is immortal in the present life, all 
that death cannot destroy. The contrast between the 
Christian and pagan tomb stands out with singular 
force in the inscriptions borne by both : Vixit — he 
hath lived — is the pagan formula; vivit—he liveth — 
is the Christian formula. 

Now that we know the general character of the 
Catacombs we can undertake a visit with profit. The 
excavations are far from having laid open the greater 
part of subterranean Rome. For the present, people 
can only visit the Catacombs of Saint Agnes, of 



256 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Achilles and Nerea, of Saint Priseilla, and of Saint 
Callistus. I would particularly speak of the last, for 
we shall here find the most precious discoveries 
made in late years. I must first say a few words 
about this Callistus, under whose name the vast 
cemetery has been placed, because the guard of it 
had been confided to him by Bishop Zephyrinus, 
whose deacon he was before becoming his successor. 
Here I shall no longer have Signor di Rossi with 
me ; but whatever his knowledge may be, I think I 
am in the right on this point against him. Callistus, 
of whom the Roman Church has made a saint, was a 
cunning trickster. It is possible that he died well, 
and that martyrdom covered his questionable past. 
Cardinal Richelieu said one dav that his red robe 
covered all his doings. It was the same, and for 
better reason, with the blood-stained robes of confess- 
ors ; these also covered whatever defects there might 
be in their lives, and only their heroism was remem- 
bered. I can understand that their heroism should 
have been the sole memory of them which w T as 
guarded ; but it is not permitted history silently to 
pass over evil deeds which have not had merely an 
individual bearing, but have acted in the most fatal 
way on the destinies of the Church. J^ow an old 
manuscript, discovered some years ago in the dust of 
Mount Athos, lias come, bringing an overwhelming 
testimony against Callistus. 

This is the famous book of " Philosophoumena," 
discovered by Minos des Minos in a scientific mission 
undertaken in the name of France. The learned 
world immediately recognized the value of this book, 
which contains the most complete and fresh infor- 
mation on the heresies of the early ages of the Church, 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 257 

with original citations from the chiefs of the Gnostic 
school. Nobody emits a doubt on its date ; it goes 
back quite positively toward the middle of the third 
century. The latter part of the book was devoted to 
an inside chronicle of the Church of Rome in that 
period, and traced out the frightful usurpations of its 
bishop, Callistus. Who was this indignant witness 
of the intrigues which contributed most in preparing 
the way for pontifical despotism ? Origen had been 
named, and that pleased the Catholic party, which 
could dismiss as heresy whatever annoyed them in 
the document. But as the author of the work called 
himself a bishop, and as Origen was only an elder 
or presbyter, this hypothesis could not be sustained. 
I hold it certain to-day that the author of the " Phil- 
osophoumena" is Saint Hippolytus, who was Bishop 
of Ostia about the middle of the third century, and 
died a martyr, one of the most illustrious doctors of 
the time, a disciple of Irenseus and Alexander. Who- 
ever has attentively read the undisputed works of his 
pen which remain to us can easily conceive that he 
alone could have written the "Philosophoumena." 
It was, moreover, known that he had devoted a book 
to the heresies. But without engaging in this great 
debate, I will confine myself to pointing to the decisive 
proof which Rome furnishes us. At the Museum of 
the Lateran people admire a very fine statue of Saint 
Hippolytus, on the pedestal of which is drawn up a 
list of his works, among which figures a writing which 
is positively cited in the " Philosophoumena" as being 
from the author of that book. We have before us, 
then, one of the most worthy representatives of Chris- 
tendom in the third century. What does he say of 
Callistus ? First, he depicts to us the earlier periods 

17 



258 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of his life. That he was formerly a slave, and was 
afterward elevated to the highest ecclesiastical digni- 
ties, would only be a fact honorable to himself and 
to the Church. That proves how high she placed 
herself above all social distinctions. Unfortunately, 
Callistus rose by dishonorable means. He began 
with simple villainy. After having gone through a 
fraudulent bankruptcy at the expense of the Jews of 
the Transteverine quarter, he sought to conceal his 
crime by going to play in their synagogue a comedy 
of Christian heroism, transforming a vile affair about 
money into a doctrinal quarrel. Sent to the mines 
of Sicily for this daring act, he took advantage of 
the momentary good will of Commodus toward Chris- 
tians and returned to Rome, where he became the 
eager servant of the old Bishop Zephyrinus, hardly an 
intelligent man, and fond of money. He employed 
his position to gain friends by flattering all the dog- 
matical opinions which were then in conflict at Rome, 
by giving pledges and fair words to each, without 
shunning, despite all his prudence, a lapse into heresy, 
through the ambiguity of his language, w r hich bor- 
dered on Pantheism. Through these measures he 
became the successor of Zephyrinus, and he turned 
against his allies of a day. Once seated in the epis- 
copal throne he thought only of the methods of increas- 
ing his power. He employed the surest means of 
success by relaxing all the bonds of the ancient disci- 
pline, flinging wide open the doors of the Church to 
all who desired to enter without renouncing a sinful 
life. This calculation was profound ; a holy Church 
is a free Church, for Christian people only abandon 
their rights when they have renounced the fulfillment 
of their duties. The sacerdotal priesthood grew up 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 259 

on the ruins of the universal priesthood. Callistus 
was particularly easy toward the improprieties of 
great ladies whom their whims brought into the 
Church. He compared the latter to Noah's ark, 
which carried in its bosom unclean animals as well 
as clean. This confusion required a firm hand in the 
pilot, and the Bishop of Eome was charged with the 
business. Saint Hippolytus openly resisted him ; he 
chiefly combated the most fearful of his usurpations, 
which consisted in directly remitting sins in his own 
name, without any regard for ecclesiastical discipline. 
This is what made the valiant defender of ancient 
Christian liberty shiver with indignation ! But he 
was resisting a current stronger than he — stronger 
than the resistance of the Origens and Tertullians, 
the current of worldliness and formalism whose bil- 
lows the union of the Church with the Empire, was 
soon to precipitate in an irresistible manner. The 
book of Hippolytus nevertheless remains an over- 
whelming witness against the early attempts of the 
Roman Episcopacy to found a divine power. Surely 
it is a favorable hour to hear the voice of this cham- 
pion of liberty and holiness, on the eve of the day 
when one of the successors of Callistus will strive to 
ascend the last step of the altar where he would be 
adored by Catholic Christendom. Let not the name 
of Callistus prejudice us against his Catacomb. He 
was merely charged to arrange it ; he could not dis- 
honor the holy confessors who repose there ; besides, 
his remains are not here. The sanctuary has not 
been profaned. I have already related how Signor 
di Rossi succeeded in discovering this Christian cem- 
etery, one of the most vast and important. It really 
includes two cemeteries, that of Callistus and that of 



260 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

Lucina, which have been combined by subterranean 
galleries. The latter was by far the more ancient ; 
by bringing together fragments of inscriptions scat- 
tered in the ashes, Signor di Rossi succeeded in read- 
ing the epitaph of Cornelius ; and by prosecuting his 
excavations he discovered his portrait painted in fresco 
on the arcosolium which served for his tomb. Now 
Saint Cornelius was one of the most eminent bishops 
of the third century. In the Catacomb of Callistus 
he got together by the same process the fragments of 
a great inscription of Pope Damascus, which in the 
most precise manner indicated the location of the 
episcopal tomb in the third century. The epitaphs 
of four bishops of that epoch have also been regained 
in the same crypt, which is situated near the crypt of 
Saint Cecilia. Thus Signor di Rossi has very truly 
discovered the most important Catacomb of the second 
period of the Church of Rome. In gleaning up all 
the inscriptions which were buried there, he perceived 
that the land belonged to the illustrious family of the 
Cecilii, which explains its proximity to the pompous 
tomb of Cecilia Metella, the wife of Crassus. Some of 
the greatest names of ancient Rome and of imperial 
Rome are encountered in the funereal inscriptions of 
the Catacomb. The Christianity of that epoch then 
did not merely attract to itself the poor, the slaves, 
the ignorant, but also an important section of the 
Roman aristocracy, women akin to the imperial fam- 
ily, men destined to the highest offices in the State. 
Nothing can better show how universally souls were 
then wrought upon by religious aspirations, and how 
they sighed for a worship which might give them peace. 
The higher classes of the nation had particularly flung 
themselves into Oriental superstitions, but the super- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 261 

stitions of Mithra and Isis had quickly revealed to 
them their nothingness, and, inrpelled by the same 
needs of heart and mind, they now came knocking 
at the doors of the Church. 

After all these explanations, it is time for us to 
penetrate the Catacomb of Callistus. We go thither 
by that incomparable Appian Way, which to my 
mind is the finest thing in Rome. Coming out by 
Saint Sebastian Gate we encounter the Quo Yadis 
Church, whose touching legend I have already related ; 
then, not far from the tomb of Cecilia Metella, you 
reach the gate of a vineyard — a turfy mound over- 
looks the entire landscape. When the golden rays of 
the setting sun impurple the immense plain, girdle 
the Albanian and Sabine Mountains with a halo, and 
come breaking on the aqueducts, you say to yourself, 
This is truly perfect beauty, and you are not mistaken. 
You descend into the Catacomb by a very steep stair- 
case ; you light a candle and advance, full of tender 
respect, along these somber walls, which contain the 
remains of several Christian generations and the ashes 
of ctonfessors. You imagine the scenes that have taken 
place under these arches in the days of persecution. 
You see a multitude in tears accompanying the corpse 
of one of its pastors who has just been sacrificed ; 
prayer and sacred hymns rise amid sobbings, and the 
words of eternal life resound as a mighty consolation 
and a sure promise. A pious hand traces the memory 
of this holy hour in a fresco rapidly engraved on the 
unslaked lime. It is Elijah borne away in his chariot 
of fire — a sublime image of the glory of the martyr. 
There, it is the youth in the furnace, repeating to the 
Church that the Son of God traverses it with her. 
Next, it is Daniel in the lions' den, or Noah in the 



262 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

ark — a lively image of the protection of God over the 
loosened waves of persecution. The Christians of 
those dolorous times delighted in the symbols of tri- 
umph ; rarely do they depict those' of suffering. 
Why should they? Were they not plunged in it? 
What they need is, to greet in advance the happy 
shore whither their hopes tend. Yet I found at Saint 
Callistus a very beautiful fresco, which represents the 
appearance of the Christians before the tribunal of the 
Emperor. We see the haughty judge on his seat; 
the pagan priest who has denounced the Christian is 
fleeing basely, and full of wrath ; he perfectly repre- 
sents the persecuting Church which says that she ab- 
hors blood, abhor ret a sanguine^ because she does 
herself slay those whom she has delivered to the 
secular arm. Nothing is so fine as the glance of 
the confessor; it has that inflexible sweetness which 
nothing can overcome : and he too, in his indomitable 
resistance, repeats after the Master, I am a king, for 
I bear witness to the truth. Symbols which speak 
of the resurrection are also very' numerous. Jonah 
is its most frequent type ; he is represented as he is 
swallowed by the whale, and then as he proceeds 
from his jaws, which represent the jaws of the sepul- 
cher. The resurrection of Lazarus is likewise con- 
stantly represented. A very significant painting in 
the Catacombs, which indicates one of the greatest 
revolutions wrought by Christianity, is that which 
shows us a laborer with his instruments of toil, a 
blacksmith with his tools, a ditcher with his pick. 
Till Jesus Christ came, manual labor was despised 
and given up to the slave ; it is now honored as being 
required by God. In the Christian cemeteries we are 
constantly reading the great text of Saint Paul : Do 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 263 

all things in the name of God. We feel that the 
entire life is animated by a new breath, that is sancti- 
titied in all its legitimate elements, and that the 
barrier is not yet reared between the sacred and the 
profane ; as if all that we are, all that we have, and 
all that we do, did not belong to God. A mother 
has desired to have the plaything of a child prema- 
turely snatched from her tenderness, represented on 
his little resting place. Christian symbols have been 
found on utensils, on fragments of furniture, which 
w T ere incrusted on the tomb as signs for recognition. 
I was particularly struck by one inscription gleaned 
up by Signor di Rossi at Saint Callistus, and which 
runs thus in Greek : Dyonissas preshytes iatros — 
JDyonisias priest and physician. The Church of the 
third century, then, saw no incompatibility between 
the exercise of the ecclesiastical office and a purely 
lay calling. 

You would, no doubt, ask me whether the frescos 
and inscriptions of the Catacombs bring any confir- 
mation to Catholicism or Protestantism ? I should 
reply concerning both in the negative. What is 
found there is very different from either; the Chris- 
tianity of the second and third century, with its free- 
dom and fervor, with all the complex elements that 
were blended in it. There is not a single inscription, 
nor a solitary fresco, that implies the primacy of Peter, 
for the inscriptions which put his name over a Moses 
Smiting the Rock are of later date. The Virgin 
Mary appears only as the humble mother of Jesus, to 
whom alone adoration is visibly addressed. As to 
the sacraments, they have sought to make much of 
the frescos of Saint Callistus, which represent Bap- 
tism by the miraculous draft of fish, and the Supper 



264 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

by a mystical repast around a table laden with loaves 
and fishes. I can see nothing in these frescos which 
implies any thing more than the celebration of 
these two sacraments, connected with the evan- 
gelical stories which have always served as their 
symbols. At any rate, there is no trace of any 
other sacraments but Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 
Most of the inscriptions imply the immediate blessed- 
ness of the dead. Some contain a vow in his be- 
half, and others entreat his prayers. This is nothing 
astonishing ; the Church of the second and third cen- 
tury believed in the continuation of redemptive action 
beyond the tomb. 

It is remarkable to note that all the symbols 
used in the Catacombs are drawn from our canon- 
ical books. It is only at Naples that you find 
something drawn from the Shepherd of Hernias — 
two maidens building the mystical tower. We can 
infer nothing from the Catacombs concerning the 
worship of images, since it is admitted that they did 
not serve for places of worship. The vials wherein 
it was claimed that the blood of martyrs was depos- 
ited bear inscriptions which imply that they were 
used in the Eucharist. In this, then, there is no 
certain indication to discern the tombs of martyrs, 
apart from topographical designations. I do not 
speak of the other Catacombs which I have visited, 
and w 7 hich I have already named, because I have 
grouped about Saint Callistus whatever has seemed 
to me most worthy of interest in my studies of 
Christian archaeology. 

I take leave to express the wish that the Fathers of 
the present Council may often descend into the 
Catacombs, in order that they may measure the dis- 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 265 

tance which separates the Boraan Church of to-day 
from the Eoman Church of the early times ; and that 
they may explain how the actual Pontificate pro- 
ceeds from the primitive Episcopacy ; and above all, 
how it continues its tradition in the bosom of the 
wealth of material power and by the exertion of an 
oppressive policy. 

E. de Pbessense. 



266 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTEE XT. 

The Council Chamber — Preliminary Session — An Unpleasant Incident 
and a Conversation — Bishop Dupanloup and M. Veuillot — The Op- 
position — The Pope's Allocution in the Preliminary Session — Its 
Spirit — The Manifesto of the Oivilta Cattolica — On the Eve of the 
Council — The Letters of Janus put in the Index — Wrath of the 
Liberals — Opening Ceremonies of the Council, with Comments — 
The Committees on Faith, Discipline, and the Religious Orders — 
Their Duties — Parleying Protestants — The True Issue — Unmeaning 
Distinctions — The False Supernatural. 

Rome, December, 1869. 

I shall write the last two letters in the form of a 
journal, in order to follow more closely the incidents 
of these important days. Here we are decidedly on 
the eve of the Council. The preparations are ad- 
vancing from day to day. I went this morning to 
Saint Peter's. The chapel where the deliberations 
will take place is quite ready. The benches are cov- 
ered w T ith velvet, the Pontifical Chair rises in its 
majesty and solitude, a symbol of the dogma which 
they are eager to proclaim at Eome. In the basilica 
itself, in the rear of the confessional of Saint Peter, 
benches of the same kind are prepared for the great 
religious ceremonies w T hich w r ill precede and accom- 
pany the Council. This morning, Tuesday, Decem- 
ber 2d, a preparatory session was held in the Sistine 
Chapel, and I saw filing past bishops of all nations, 
tongues, and costumes. The session no doubt dealt 
with the ceremonial question. Priests are arriving 
at Rome in ever-growing numbers. Their minds 
appear quite heated. Returning from Naples this 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 267 

morning, I had a very significant conversation with 
two Jesuits. The occasion of it was original enough, 
though hardly agreeable to me. It happened that 
yesterday evening, on leaving the station at Naples, 
a thief had nimbly and skillfully abstracted quite a 
sum of gold from me. The company was all cleri- 
cal. They shared my vexation, but it did not fail to 
inspire a certain contentment in my cassocked com- 
panions, because they thought it a new proof of the 
moral lapse of a nation that is shaking off the yoke 
of Catholic absolutism. In vain did I suggest that 
my thief did not belong to the new generation, by 
observing that justice required us to blame his early 
teachers rather than the new government. It would 
not do, and they came near accusing Yictor Imman- 
uel of having had his hand in my pocket. Once on 
this ground the conversation did not pause. My 
friends of the Gesu expressed a profound indignation 
at the late manifestations of Monseigneur Dupan- 
loup, as if he were dishonoring the close of his career. 
They lauded Yeuillot and his journal to the skies. 
For them he is the Archangel Michael, sword in 
hand. They turned a deaf ear when I told them 
that this archangel more frequently took mud from 
the highway to besmear his adversaries than the 
sword of speech. When I invoked freedom of con- 
science, ever trampled under foot by. this desperado, 
they replied that the truth alone had rights — that it 
was like the sun — that people ought to submit to it 
or be punished — that the Pope was as God. When 
I declared to them that I felt horror at an Inquisitor- 
Christ, they did me the honor to say, You are a 
Protestant. Thereupon they fell to abusing our mis- 
sions and our great Reformers. " Study, sir, study 



268 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

the history of the Church," said a monk quite ludi- 
crously to me, " and you will see whether there is any 
likeness between Saint Peter and your Luther." I 
might have asked him, with a smile, to show me the 
likeness between the boatman of Lake Tiberias and 
the Sovereign Pontiff. He talked of pride, rebellion, 
and always came back to that frightful theory of the 
right of persecution. This is the staple of the Roman 
idea. In the eyes of the two Jesuits you should have 
seen the gleaming of the stern and somber fire of 
fanaticism. Be not deceived — it is this inflamed at- 
mosphere which will surround and weigh upon the 
Council. It will have, like the Convention of 1793, 
its mountain and its tribunes, which will exercise a 
moral violence on its deliberations. Decidedly the 
presence of all these monks is not useless. 

December 3. — To comprehend the irritation of the 
IJltramontanes against the least of the Gallicans, one 
should read the letter of the Bishop of Orleans to 
M. Yeuillot. I send you a reproduction of it, for it 
is a capital document on the question of infallibility. 

" Sir : In the letter which you published, No- 
vember 18th, in regard to my observations on the 
controversy raised in relation to the definition of 
infallibility, you excuse yourself for having been one 
to awaken this controversy. You pretend that, if I 
have determined at last to speak on this question, 
you had nothing to do with it ; that it was not your 
fault. 

" Here I am obliged to contradict you. 

" Yes, sir, it is your fault, and I cannot accept your 
excuse. 

" You ask, ' Why has Monseigneur the Bishop of 



Home, Italy, and the Council. 269 

Orleans brought this question before the public ? ' I 
will explain to you. 

" You deny the seasonableness and justice of my 
act : I will make you comprehend them. 

" You say that it would not be becoming to pro- 
voke from me a new condemnation. I come not to 
condemn, but to warn you. 

" I might neglect your provocations, were they 
personal to me. But what you have been doing for 
ten months is another matter. 

" You assume, sir, a bearing in the Church which 
is no longer tolerable. 

" You, a mere layman, of whom one of our holy 
bishops said yesterday, in your own columns, that 
they have no authority and are nothing in the Church. 
You usurp strangely — you agitate and trouble men's 
minds in the Church ; you are raising a sort of 
pious mob at the doors of the Council ; you prescribe 
its course ; you raise questions that the Holy Father 
has not raised ; you talk of inevitable, as you deem 
them, definitions; you tell their upshot and form; 
you decide questions of doctrine and discipline ; you 
make yourself a judge between bishops, to dishonor 
some and rule others ; you take sides for or against 
them, on the gravest, most delicate, and complex theo- 
logical questions; you abuse, denounce, and put un- 
der the ban of Catholicism all Catholics who do not 
think and speak like yourself; you do not even allow 
them to abstain, through a sense of incompetency and 
through reverence, from discussions against bishops; 
in your eyes, not to meddle with controversies raised 
by you as you do, is a desertion ! 

" This is too much, sir. It was time to answer you. 
Therefore I spoke. You say that ' I have just given 



270 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

a head to an armed revolt.' No, sir ; what I have 
done is no revolt, but a defense. 

" For the moment has come to defend ourselves 
against you. 

" In my turn, then, I raise my voice, and hasten to 
oppose enterprises against which I utter a solemn 
warning. 

"I accuse you of usurpations over the Episcopacy, 
and of perpetual intrusion into the gravest and most 
delicate affairs. I denounce especially your doctrinal 
excesses, your deplorable taste for irritating questions, 
and for violent and dangerous conclusions. I accuse 
you of accusing, abusing, and slandering your breth- 
ren in the faith. Better than you, none ever deserved 
that severe phrase of Holy Writ : The accuser of the 
brethren. 

" Above all, I reproach you with making the 
Church a partner in your violence, by presenting as 
her doctrine, with rare audacity, your most personal 
ideas." 

M. Yeuillothas replied with his accustomed daring. 
He has hurled at the Bishop of Orleans the phrase 
which is his climax in abuse. When he has exhausted 
his vocabulary which however does not lack wealth, 
he has a crowning epithet, Academician. In his eyes 
that represents all baseness and all hypocrisy. And 
he did not fail to let that arrow fly at Monseigneur Du- 
panloup, who indeed is one of the Forty of the French 
Academy. M. Louis Yeuillot, by what I was told 
last night, has reached Home. He is no doubt to repre- 
sent one of the tongues of fire in the new Pentecost, 
and breathe upon the assembly that rage against all 
liberty which consumes himself. I have received new 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 271 

information concerning the divisions of opinion in the 
Council. It seems that the Hungarian and Portu- 
guese bishops form the extreme party against the 
Pontifical infallibility ; they come here full of anima- 
tion, and will sustain the Germans and the few bishops 
who have resisted the general current. The Pope has 
had a table prepared which gives him a view of the 
probable votes of the diverse bishops. How singu- 
larly that savors of worldly policy ! What matters 
all this information, if it is true that all the bishops, 
when once assembled, will be lifted to the heights of 
inspiration ? What they think to-day is of no impor- 
tance, since to-morrow they will become oracles of the 
Divine Spirit. But the Holy Father himself acts as if 
he had to deal with an ordinary deliberative body, as 
the Queen of England would do on the eve of the 
opening of her Parliament. This is because the Pope, 
in his desire to see the triumph of the dogma of his 
infallibility, slightly forgets that the Council is to be 
inspired, and relapses unconsciously into the reality 
of facts. The thing will be much more patent 
when the deliberations shall have begun and shall 
appear doubtful. There will be great anguish at the 
Vatican ; they will ask if the good party may not re- 
ceive a check, and will talk, on occasion, as though the 
Holy Spirit lacked wisdom. Sarpi, the enlightened 
historian of the Council of Trent, relates that the in- 
spiration came to the sacred Council in the valise of 
Pome, which brought benefices and presents. To-day 
the presents flow to Pome and do not proceed from 
her. There is, then, no such abominable simony to 
fear. Unless they succeed at the outset in creating 
a blind enthusiasm, discussion will be needed and the 
result doubtful. It will, moreover, be difficult for 



272 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

the deliberations to produce any great effect at the 
time. The speeches will scarcely be heard, and little 
understood, by auditors not belonging to the same 
nation as the orator. Stenography will gather them 
up, and the prelates will read them at home, sipping 
their chocolate. Thus will they form their opinions. 
We ask ourselves how the sacred spark will be 
loosened in an assembly so split up. 

December i:. — The discourse pronounced by the 
Pope in the preparatory session, the other day, when 
he had the oath administered to the officers of the 
Council, has just been published in the Home Journal. 
The Holy Father limits himself to the expression of his 
joy on finding himself surrounded by the bishops, and 
compares himself with Jesus Christ surrounded by 
the disciples when he formulated the loftiest doctrines. 
People perceive the sense and aim of this comparison. 
The Allocution closes with pious words, which for a 
wonder are unmingled with anathemas. As if to con- 
trast with this pacific language, the Civiltd Cattolica, 
which appeared yesterday, published a true manifesto 
under the title, The Council of the Vatican. The 
organ of the Jesuits inquires, What are the diverse 
dispositions of mind which appear on the eve of the 
8th of December? It finds three principal ones, joy- 
ful expectation, declared ill-will, and the disquietude 
of men of little faith. The last are the Liberal Cath- 
olics. Against these is directed its heavy artillery. 
They would reconcile Catholicism and modern liberty. 
But this liberty is precisely the great heresy which 
the Council should condemn. Under the name of 
liberty they try to withdraw the family, the State, and 
the school from the Church, from the saving power 
of the word — since the first principle of that liberty 



Eome, Italy, and the Council. 273 

is the secularization of civil and political life. This 
must be at any cost hindered and condemned. The 
word is life, light, and salvation. The duty of the 
Church is to subdue the State as well as the family 
and the school, and to make an end of freedom of 
conscience, which denies her this sacred right. 

The Council will not fail to condemn the miserable 
indifferentism that tolerates all religions and all opin- 
ions. The Ultramontane party will not be reproached 
with carrying its flag in its pocket on the eve of the 
Council. It hopes for the restoration of the law of 
the Middle Ages. One faith, one law, one king ! Peo- 
ple observe the guarded silence of the famous review 
on the late productions of the Bishop of Orleans, 
while it extols the most mediocre circular of the most 
unknown South American bishop. It behaves like 
the ostrich, which thrusts its bead into the sand in 
order not to see the approaching peril, and assumes 
the air of despising what at bottom it dreads. 

December 7. — Here we are on the eve of the great 
day. This is truly the moment to speak of a French 
pamphlet advertised on all the walls of Rome, and 
entitled, u On the Eve of the Council." A master- 
piece of bigotry and stupidity, it is sure to be greatly 
relished in orthodox circles. The author feels com- 
passion for those whom he calls good-natured Catho- 
lics — by whom he means the simple and credulous 
who fill the churches, at least in the lay ranks — who 
allow themselves to be snared by antichurch accusa- 
tions. The author makes me feel that he merits an 
honorable position among the good-natured of whom 
he so disdainfully speaks. He seeks to prove that all 
the anxiety which has been circulated on the issue of 

the Council has no foundation. He does not compre- 

18 



274 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

hend how the doctrine of infallibility can disturb 
people, and I confess that on this point his reasoning 
seems to me well founded. He says, " After the 
publication of a not yet defined dogma like the Im- 
maculate Conception, done by the Pope alone with- 
out a Council, who could seriously, and without of- 
fense to his own conscience, to-day maintain the so- 
called Gallican ideas on the infallibility of the Pope 
and the Council? These ideas then received a mor- 
tal blow from the hands of the entire Episcopacy. 
Was not that infallibility more than proclaimed in 
1854, since it was publicly and unanimously obeyed ? 
Shall it be inscribed in the Council in the great book 
of the defined rights of the Holy See ? It seems to 
us that after having read it in the consciences of the 
whole Episcopate, that this is nothing to stir up seri- 
ous men." This time the " Good-natured " does not 
lack skill. He gives us to understand that, proclaimed 
or not, infallibility nevertheless exists. Then he pours 
out his bile, vile vestry bile, on the recalcitrant bish- 
ops, and he can only abuse Father Hyacinthe by re- 
joicing in his fall, as he styles it. because it has rent 
the vail in which the Catholic Liberals were wrapped. 
He seeks to reassure the bishops, who are a little 
vexed that simple priests should know more than 
they about the programme of the Council, having 
been admitted into the preparatory committees. He 
elegantly inquires, " Have they not understood that 
the cook is not better fed than his master because he 
sees the dinner which he prepares before the master, 
who does not see it till he has the chance to eat it?" 
It is well understood, then, that the Council will be 
completely cooked before its opening; that the bish- 
ops will only have to shut their eyes and open their 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 275 

mouths to proclaim what has been decided on for 
them. The author trounces those governments 
soundly who have some anxiety concerning the wis- 
dom of the resolutions that may be reached on the 
relations of the civil order and the religious order. 
These decisions will be conformed to eternal truth ; 
and besides, the princes have denied the Christian 
faith since the State has become secularized. They 
will not have, then, to employ their swords in the 
service of the decrees of the Council, which, however, 
is a great pity. Let the Church and the world be 
reassured as they behold Pius IX., w T ho, since he pro- 
claimed the Immaculate Conception of Mary, com- 
bines in recompense the penetrating charms of woman 
with manly energy. Let them fall upon their knees, 
and into silence. Such is the substance of this pam- 
phlet, which at Rome doubtless seems a marvelous 
w 7 ork. At the very moment it appeared, they were 
placarding on the walls the last decisions of the Con- 
gregation of the Index. It condemns in the front 
rank the " Letters of Janus," a grave and learned 
book, which very clearly expresses the views of the 
most distinguished section of German Catholicism. 
It is the Catholicism of Dollinger that is here con- 
demned in advance, and stifled by the mutes of the 
Roman seraglio at the moment when they are about 
to open the so-called deliberative Assembly of Cathol- 
icism. This shows the measure of freedom which re- 
calcitrant opinions will there enjoy. I regard this 
condemnation on the eve of the Council as a scandal. 
The Papacy would see its opponents only with their 
hands bound and their lips gagged ; but then it might 
have spared us this comedy of a senate of bishops 
which can only decide with what sauce to serve the 



276 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

fish, that is, with what sincere or equivocal formulas 
they will wrap the dogmas already decreed at the 
Vatican. How well I understand the wrath that 
rumbles in the hearts of intelligent and liberal men 
at such a spectacle. Here is what I heard the other 
evening in a Roman abode of the highest distinction : 
" The temporal power is every thing here. It has 
mounted the spiritual power, and uses it as its steed. 
Islamism is perhaps not so far from primitive Christi- 
anity as Papistry. Celestial Empire, Sublime Porte, 
and Holy See — these are a triangle, of which each 
angle is equally distant from the Gospel. What a dis- 
tance between Calvary and the Vatican, between the 
Holy Sepulcher and the Holy See ! The Papacy once 
abolished the Society of Jesus. The latter returns 
the favor to-day by dragging it to its ruin. Chris- 
tianity will be reborn in these lands only from the 
ashes of the present structure." Such are the motions 
of many consciences. As I write, all the bells of 
Rome proclaim the great festival of to-morrow. On 
me they have the effect of a battle clarion. They 
excite in me the ardent desire to fight more energeti- 
cally than ever the great fight of Christian freedom. 

Decemher 9. — Well, it is over, the famous day so 
long expected in Catholicism, which is to inaugurate, 
if we may believe its sincere defenders, an era of 
glory and power with which nothing in previous 
ages can be compared ! Let us try to give a faithful 
picture of this great spectacle, which under the arches 
of Saint Peter's had incomparable scenic advantages, 
and which had some very fine moments. The skies 
were not favorable ; the weather, which had seemed 
to promise sunshine, was detestable. The dull gray 
light, leaving the immense basilica in demi-obscurity, 



Some, Italy, and the Council. 277 

was a great pity, for a rich golden light would have 
added much to the magnificence of the ceremony. 
From five in the morning the multitude began to 
flow to the porticoes of Saint Peter's. Near half past 
six, the doors were opened. The church was speedily 
more than full. Never, even at Easter, did I see it 
so greatly thronged. Tt was a moving ocean of hu- 
man heads, where all the ecclesiastical costumes were 
blended in an often picturesque variety with brilliant 
uniforms, the toilets of the great ladies, and the sim- 
ple garments of the Roman peasant. The ladies all 
wore black vails. Fortunately no breath of terror 
passed over that human sea, for one dare not think 
what would have happened had such a multitude 
been of a sudden wrought upon by one of those inex- 
plicable frights which too often arise in great assem- 
blies — it would immediately become a blind element, 
and irresistible in its wrath, which would destroy itself. 
Nowhere in my life have I seen so many men assem- 
bled. Fortunately the Italian crowds do not resemble 
our French throngs in their promptness to lift up and 
dash together their waves; and there was no acci- 
dent to regret at Saint Peter's. The basilica is hap- 
pily not susceptible, on account of its size, of being 
overloaded with ornaments; otherwise they would 
not have failed to spoil its magnificent arrangements, 
as is done in all the other churches on great festivals. 
Its immensity triumphs over the false elegance of its 
tinsel. Overflowing thus, it produced a truly grand 
effect ; there is certainly no other edifice on earth 
capable, on such a day, of presenting a similar vision 
of mankind. However, I noticed one change accom- 
plished in favor of the opening ceremony of the 
Council ; the famous statue of Saint Peter, whose 



278 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

great toe is worn away by the kisses of the faithful, 
was splendidly adorned for the ceremony; instead of 
the usual image, which is that of an apostle from the 
ranks of the people, they had made it the representa- 
tion of the royal pontificate ; they had flung over his 
naked shoulders the mantle of a chief of the hierarchy, 
and circled his brow with the tiara. This act is 
symbolical, it very well expresses what Roman Ca- 
tholicism has done with Christian antiquity in sur- 
charging it at a later date with the deceitful signs of 
its usurpations. It could not more frankly confess 
that it found an apostle, born and abiding in pov- 
erty, as well when he became a fisher of men as when 
he flung his nets into the Sea of Tiberias, and that 
despite himself, it made him a prince of this world, a 
civil and religious despot. This avowal is at the 
same time a hint to the Fathers of the Council to 
bow before the successor of Peter, and not to cherish 
foolish ideas of independence. The hall of the Coun- 
cil, which has been opened in one of the arms of the 
transverse cross of the basilica, is as I have already 
described. They have depicted on its walls some of 
the greatest Councils, beginning with that of Jeru- 
salem. The painter has received new information 
on that great event, which he surely did not draw 
from the narrative of Saint Luke. He shows us the 
assembly with the Virgin Mary presiding, seated be- 
tween Saint Peter and Saint Paul. To her all eyes 
are turned, as it is in her name that prayers are to go 
up to ask of Heaven the illumination of the bishops. 
To us nothing appears more logical than this honor- 
able position of the Virgin in a Council opened on 
the anniversary of the proclamation of the Immacu- 
late Conception, and convoked with the special 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 279 

design of justifying forever this grand, authoritative 
stroke of the Papacy. 

About eight o'clock, the troops which were to keep 
the way open for the cortege took their place in the 
basilica ; the Swiss are arrayed as halberdiers of the 
Middle Ages, with coats of mail and red plumed hel- 
mets. The cannons of Saint Angelo announce that 
the ceremony is about to begin. The Fathers of the 
Council are assembled in the galleries of the Vatican ; 
they descend the princely staircase. They pass the 
threshold of the basilica, and the singers of the Sistine 
Chapel, who precede them, intone the Veni Creator in 
simple and noble style. The aspect of Saint Peter's 
at this moment is imposing; never yet had such a 
procession swept through it. The bishops are esti- 
mated at eight hundred. Each of them is accompanied 
by his theologian. At the head of the procession are 
the dignitaries of all sorts who abound in Rome, then 
representatives of all the congregations. Then fol- 
lows the long file of the bishops, who advance two 
by two. It is truly an assembly from every tongue 
and nation. Beside the Italian bishop, with his deli- 
cate and long profile, advances the German bishop, 
with somewhat gross but manly features. Here is a 
French bishop near a Spanish, English, or American 
bishop. The Oriental bishops are remarkable for 
their long beards, and the majestic calmness of their 
expression. The most distant missions are repre- 
sented; the Bishop of Siam is beside the Bishop of 
Geneva. The entire hierarchy unrolls the links of 
its chain. While the ancient hymn vibrates power- 
fully under the arches, the patriarchs and cardinals, 
covered with their purple, precede the Holy Father, 
whom his noble guards, all bedizened w T ith gilding, 



280 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

announce. He is followed by the apostolical prothon- 
otaries and the generals of the great religions 
orders. He lays his golden miter on the threshold 
of the basilica. He pauses before the Confessional of 
Saint Peter, prostrates himself, and intones with his 
sonorous voice the prayers for the day ; then he pro- 
ceeds to the throne which has been prepared for him 
in the further end of the Hall of the Council. Then 
begins the great opening mass, performed by Mon- 
seigneur Patrizzi, the Cardinal Vicar, which is chanted 
by the choir of the Sistine Chapel. 

This choir is the musical glory of Rome. It al- 
ways chants without accompaniment, and it entirely 
shuns the theatrical effects of the Chapels of the 
Canons of Saint Peter's and of Saint John de Lat- 
eran ; it does not like interminable roulades and 
brilliant cavatinas. The music which it prefers is in 
general very ancient; melody is rare, but the whole 
effect is marvelously powerful. Nowhere have I 
found such consummate art in passing by gradation 
from the softest piano to the most reverberating 
forte. You would think it a single voice running 
over the entire scale of the diapason, with shades of 
infinite delicacy, to end in a superb and triumphant 
outburst. The Sistine Chapel is the faithful guardian 
of a musical tradition which goes back to the finest 
days of Catholic art, and it is this that preserves it 
from the invasion of the refined and effeminate melo- 
dies which Church music now affects. Will it long 
keep that tradition ? I doubt it. It will finally share 
in that indescribable softness which the Catholic 
worship has taken on, since the adoration of Mary 
has occupied the central place. For the moment, 
this musical revolution is not yet effected at the Sis- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 281 

tine. Let us profit by this to admire their somewhat 
strange chants, which appear in their sharp tenuity 
to attain the extreme limits of the human voice, then 
to melt into majestic harmonies; sublime echo of 
tradition. Yesterday the " Yeni Creator," as well as 
the opening mass, were chanted with unequaled per- 
fection, in a way that filled the soul with religious 
emotion in which there was nothing artificial. Let 
us grasp in their flight these good moments of the 
Catholic worship, for they do not last long, and they 
are soon replaced by great parade. I ought, how- 
ever, to concede that the forms of the opening services 
of the Council appeared to me in general fine and 
well conceived, and, at any rate, much superior to 
the habitual ceremonies of modern Catholicism. I 
can very easily explain this superiority. The Rom- 
ish Church has held no (Ecumenical Council for three 
centuries. In the determination of the ceremonial 
then she is obliged to recur to a tradition quite an- 
terior to her innovations. Mariolatry and the un- 
measured exaltation of the papal pow T er were not 
developed three centuries ago as they are at the 
present time. They were on the morrow of the 
Reform ; the Society of Jesus had not attained the 
degree of influence which it has since acquired. The 
business was to defend themselves against a powerful 
adversary, whom they might indeed burn and exter- 
minate, but could not despise. The breath of the Re- 
form, though weakened and cooled, had reached some 
of the Fathers of the Council of Trent, especially the 
French prelates. It is, then, very easy to compre- 
hend that the necessity of conforming in the opening 
of the present Council to a tradition which belongs 
to a period when Catholicism was very different from 



282 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

what it is to-day, should have impressed on the cere- 
mony of the 8th of December a character evidently 
superior to the present level of Romish piety. 

Immediately after the mass, Monseigneur Peucher 
Passavolli, charged with sermon, proceeds to ask the 
benediction of the Pope and leave to begin his preach- 
ing. It is a formal sermon, without any precise mean- 
ing". The Cardinal Vicar then read the first words of 
the Gospel of John : In principio erat verhum. After 
that Monseigneur Fessler, the Secretary of the Coun- 
cil, went to deposit a copy of the Holy Scriptures on a 
reading desk in the form of a throne which had been 
set up over the altar. This was surely an admirable 
ceremony, which calls to mind a profound saying of 
my illustrious master, Yinet. He said that certain 
Catholic ceremonies affected him like those buoys 
which are fixed at certain spots in the sea near the coast 
to mark the place where some precious object was lost. 
Does not that Holy Bible laid on the altar suggest 
with great eloquence the treasure, lost to present Cath- 
olicism, of that veritable authority before which every 
Christian should bow? In the early General Coun- 
cils, which, however, were not free from human 
influence, especially from that of the pretendedly 
Christian Caesars, the sacred texts truly had the force 
of law. Herr Professor Piper, well known for his 
fine works on Christian archaeology, and for his evan- 
gelical u Year-books," has discovered at the Imperial 
Library of Paris, in an old manuscript, the repre- 
sentation of an ancient Council. The Bible is not 
only laid on the altar, it is put wide open in the chair 
of the president — on that is conferred the presidency 
of the Council. That is the true doctrinal infalli- 
bility; it is there and not elsewhere. Were not the 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 283 

act of depositing the Bible on the altar a vain form 
for the Council of the Vatican, it would not be so 
anxious on the question of knowing how far infalli- 
bility should be divided between the Pope and the 
bishops. Both would lay their hands on the sacred 
book and every thing would be said. I well know 
that if they submitted to its teachings, consulted di- 
rectly and not athwart tradition, there would soon be 
neither bishops nor popes, and that, according to 
the command of Saint Peter, nobody would longer 
dream of lording it over God's heritage. At any 
rate, it should not be forgotten that the Christian 
soul is the true altar of Christ, and hence that the 
Holy Book should not Le kept from it, as though they 
would profane it, nor impious powers be encouraged 
and blessed in their criminal devotion who have llung 
into galleys and prisons persons guilty of having read 
together the volume pompously laid on the altar of 
the Vatican ! 

The ceremony, quickly came back to its true spirit. 
Beside the Bible is likewise laid on the altar the 
pallium, or sacerdotal mantle of the Holy Father ; 
then he is adorned with it in great pomp, that he may 
receive the fealty of the bishops, after having intoned 
the psalms of the day. The bishops then proceed 
one by one to kiss the hand of the Holy Father and 
do him homage, thus showing that they are not 
ministers of the Holy Gospel, servants of the divine 
w T ord, but the ministers or subjects of the Pope. 
They pass before the Bible, and leave it on its -golden 
throne, to bend the knee before a man. Is not this 
reducing the Bible, and Him who speaks to us in it, to 
the illusory royalty of the Merovingian princes, under 
whose name the mayors of the palace governed, w T hile 



284 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

waiting to shear their locks and send them to die in 
some monastery ? Here the mayor of the palace is 
the mighty lord of the Vatican. 

After receiving the fealty of the bishops, the Holy 
Father pronounced a truly beautiful prayer, in which, 
for himself and the bishops, he begged Jesus Christ 
that they might be kept from sin and error, that 
they might not turn aside, but follow the right path 
without undergoing any pressure. Here is another 
of these coufounding anomalies. What! you are 
infallible as you pretend ! You are so by your very 
office as successor of Saint Peter, as the common 
Father of the faithful, and as the organ of eternal 
truth — and still you entreat God that you may be 
kept from error and fall. Either your prayer, O Holy 
Father, is a mockery — which I do not admit, know- 
ing your personal piety, and all that renders your old 
age respectable — or it implies that you may err, that 
you do not possess infallibility by divine right, that 
you are exposed to our uncertainties and weaknesses. 
Then by what right, and w T itli,what face ask the 
Council to proclaim what you confess you do not pos- 
sess? You demand that they shall no longer exam- 
ine any of your opinions in doctrine or morals, and 
that they shall no longer weigh in the scales of the 
sanctuary any of your judgments, and yet in your 
prayer you confess that in those scales you may well be 
found wanting, did not the ^race of God, which vou 
ask as we ask it, keep you from lapse. It is absolutely 
impossible for me to comprehend how a Catholic the- 
ologian escapes this difficulty. I would also ask him 
how the infallible Pope should need daily to pros- 
trate his infallibility at the feet of a confessor. I 
shall be answered that infallibility is not impecca- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 285 

bility ; but is not this to forget all the laws of exper- 
imental psychology, and to neglect the close relations 
that subsist between moral and intellectual life? 

Let us recur to the opening session. The most 
solemn moment was when the litanies of the saints 
of the day, intoned by the Pope, were chanted by the 
entire Council and the vast assembly. At that 
instant the aspect of the Council was very imposing. 
The hall is arranged as an amphitheater ; in the 
center is the altar, at the rear the Papal throne. 
Two vast tribunes stand one above the other ; one is 
divided into two parts, for the diplomatic corps and 
the sovereigns, among whom shine the old Duke of 
Florence and King Francis II. — fallen royalties which 
are still recognized at Rome. The second tribune is 
for the Sistine choir. Seated in their places, all the 
bishops wear the miter. The Papal Chapel chants 
a verse of the litany, which is majestic and simple ; 
then the Council, with the assembly, repeats it. It is 
an immense chorus, whose mighty concord fills the 
naves and ascends to the cupola. It is impossible to 
avoid a very lively emotion as we hear all the 
oriental and occidental bishops uniting their voices 
in that antique hymn. It is a splendid representation 
of Catholic unity, which would ravish us did we not 
remember that it is founded on mental slavery, and 
that, after all, it is a pure chimera. Ah ! could all the 
dissensions covered up by appearances break out at 
this moment, how many sharp notes w r ould mar this 
fine harmony, and how many discords would come 
smiting our ears. Reflection comes then to calm 
enthusiasm, yet it must be confessed that the first 
impression is powerful, and the effect of this chant 
considerable. 



286 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

After the chanting of the litanies, the Holy Father 
addresses an allocution to the Council. We cannot too 
greatly admire the beauty of his tones. This old 
man of eighty years has a full and melodious voice, 
whose sonorous and modulated vibrations are heard 
at a great distance. He employs great emphasis in 
his delivery ; you feel that he is moved and happy 
to have seen the dawn of this great dav. His allocu- 
tion is very significant ; it expresses very clearly in 
w T hat spirit he hopes the Council will be held. Here 
is a summary of it : 

The Holy Father began by expressing his joy on 
seeing the great assembly of bishops about him, " on 
this day, favorable above all others, of the Immaculate 
Conception of the Virgin Mother of God ! " " Vener- 
able Brethren, let us all bear witness to the word of 
God in order to show the path of truth to all men, 
and to judge, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
the oppositions of science falsely so-called." Then 
follows the usual picture of the deviations of con- 
temporary humanity, the cry of distress from a power 
which feels that the world is escaping it. The Holy 
Father says, " You see the impious conspiracy of 
which Satan is the head ; it spreads afar, it has on 
its side wealth and institutions, and vails itself under 
freedom that it may wage war on the Holy Church 
of Christ." This language, in the mouth of the au- 
thor of the Encyclical of 1867, is clear. "But," he re- 
sumes, " nothing is mightier than the Church. i Pleav- 
en and earth shall pass away,' said Jesus Christ, fc but 
my words shall not pass away. 5 Hear them : ' Thou 
art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' " 
Such is the important thing in the allocution, and 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 287 

we may add the watchword of the Council in the 
mind of the Holy Father. The Holy Father then 
explains that it is to remove these evils that he has 
convoked the Council, which at this very moment 
presents the image of the Church Universal — -which 
in the person of its Bishops shows its piety and its 
obedience to the See of Saint Peter. The Holy 
Father feels a burning desire to labor with this great 
Council for the salvation of souls perishing without 
the pale of the Catholic faith. His eyes move with 
comfort over this great and noble city of Rome, 
which God has not abandoned to Gentile pillagers, 
and to the Roman people, who encircle him with 
their love. What particularly sustains his courage 
is the union of the Episcopacy with the Apostolical 
See ; in these difficult times nothing could be more 
useful to the Church. These bonds should be drawn 
still closer, for in the war waged on the Church, 
union with its Chief Pastor is more than ever neces- 
sary. In this spirit let us labor to give peace to 
kingdoms, the law to barbarous nations, repose to 
the religious orders, order to the Church, discipline 
to the clergy, and thus reconstitute a people well- 
pleasing to God. The discourse closes with an invo- 
cation to the Holy Spirit, to the Virgin, Queen of the 
Church, to the Angels, and to the Martyrs whose 
relics are at Rome. 

After his allocution the Holy Father arose, hold- 
ing in his hand the pastoral crook, which is the sign 
of his universal dominion, and gave the Council the 
triple benediction. Then the Cardinal, who fills the 
functions of first deacon, said to the Fathers, Orate, 
(pray.) They knelt, and prayed in silence for five 
minutes. Then the same Cardinal said to them. 



288 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Erigite vos, (rise up,) and they arose. I hardly like 
this intervention of the master of ceremonies in 
prayer, nor the supplication begun on the minute and 
closed at command. Still less was I pleased that 
Cardinal Antonelli should be the leader in prayer, he 
who has hitherto shone in other spheres than those of 
inward piety, and is better acquainted with the 
mountain whence we see all the kingdoms of the 
world than with Tabor ! 

After the prayer and the gospel of the day, the 
ceremony underwent a modification which does not 
seem unimportant. According to the original pro- 
gramme, the moment had come when the master of 
ceremonies should pronounce these words: Exeunt 
omnes qui locwn non hahent in Concilio — Let all 
who have no right to sit in the Council, depart. The 
embassadors, sovereigns, and Sistine choir should 
have left at this moment, and the doors of the As- 
sembly been closed, that the Fathers of the Council 
might hold their first deliberation in the prescribed 
forms, depositing their ballots in the election urns. 
It is only when the deliberation has taken place in 
this way that the doors should open again, and that 
it should be proclaimed before the entire Assembly 
that the Fathers themselves had decreed the opening 
of the Council. Instead of conforming to this rule, 
the Holy Father caused the Fathers to vote in public 
by simple acclamation. I well know that the sub- 
ject of the deliberation was of no importance, that 
the business in hand was a mere resolution agreed on 
in advance by all, namely, the opening of the Coun- 
cil. But derogations from the forms of deliberating 
assemblies are always grave matters ; on occasion of 
an incontestable decision, a precedent is thus created 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 289 

which will subsequently be used in relation to much 
more important questions. For my part, I should 
not be astonished if there was in the acclamation of 
yesterday an attempt to hasten matters, and demand 
from enthusiasm what reflection would refuse. Per- 
haps I am mistaken, but it notwithstanding remains 
true that the forms were modified yesterday in the 
direction of summary proceedings. In the second 
place, the Council decided that its first public session 
should be held January 6, Epiphany day. Again 
they chanted the Veni Creator, and then the cere- 
mony closed with the Te Deu?n in the Gregorian 
style, chanted by the Council and the assembly. 
Worthy coronation of this ceremony ! whose memory 
will long be preserved, and which none of our con- 
temporaries will probably see renewed. I besought 
God from the depths of my heart, while they were 
invoking the Holy Spirit, that he would send upon 
mankind his Spirit of freedom and holiness, that His 
breath might pass over Catholicism to startle and 
renew it, and that this audacious attempt at a Coun- 
cil might turn to the confusion of Jesuitic Ultramon- 
tanism, through some check, or through one of those 
insolent triumphs which bury evil causes. I took 
care not to forget that I have more than one brother 
in Jesus Christ among the Fathers of the Council, and 
that it is testifying my love to such to desire that 
their bonds may be broken. I forgot to say that the 
Knights of Malta, representatives of an order that no 
longer exists, have asked to serve as guards of the 
Holy Council. It is a phantom which may well end 
by guarding a ghost, for I fear, from fresh informa- 
tion, that the Council may be led to decisions so little 

in harmony with the present state of the w^orld and 

19 



290 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

the Church that they will, as it were, be null and 
non-existent. 

I learned yesterday from a very reliable source 
that the Council will begin by naming a Committee 
on its Ceremonial, which will likewise serve as arbiter 
should any differences arise between the bishops. 
This is a species of qusestorship, at least what we 
designate by that name, in our parliamentary assem- 
blies. Then will come, also this week, the nomina- 
tion of the three most important committees: that on 
Faith, that on Discipline, and that on Religious Orders. 
They will nominate another Committee on Missions 
and the Christian Orient. The Committee on Faith 
will be charged to draw up all decisions on the rela- 
tions of philosophy and religion — on all doctrinal ques- 
tions. There will come the famous question of Papal 
Infallibility, and probably, too, that of the Assump- 
tion of the Virgin. The way in which the first Com- 
mittee shall be made up will show how the majority of 
the Council inclines. The Spanish, American, En- 
glish, and Italian bishops will vote for thepapalist idea 
— I employ this expression, which would be thought 
very inharmonious here, for brevity, and because it 
very well depicts the situation. But a portion of the 
French and German bishops will examine more nar- 
rowly. Yet they are very hopeful in the Ultramon- 
tane camp. It is pretended that Bishop Dupanloup 
is universally blamed for having put out his pam- 
phlet at the very moment of coming to sit in the 
Council. They would even be disposed to tax this 
haste with impropriety, while they admire the put- 
ting: of the Letters of Janus into the Index. It 
would be becoming, no doubt, to vote silently what 
has been prepared beforehand by the Koman man- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 291 

agers. They have ravishing explanations of the dog- 
ma of infallibility. It is said, and I am now report- 
ing what I have heard, that at bottom this is a Liberal 
dogma ; that the Episcopacy, since it no longer pre- 
sents independent and princely positions, is entirely 
subject to the civil powers, and that henceforth the 
Holy Father alone represents the independence of 
religion ; that consequently the Liberal party is the 
Ultramontane party, and that it has proved it by 
more than once allying itself with the most advanced 
democracy. I need not remind you of the high ex- 
ploits of the Jesuits in this line ; they have not even 
recoiled before regicide. We well know that they 
are ready for any thing to serve their party, and that 
they would sing the Marseillaise if it would lead to 
their goal. Only we must not forget this goal. The 
paths that lead to it are diverse and tortuous, but 
their firm purpose is to end in the concentration of 
all advantages in the hands of the Papacy. The III 
trainontanists mock us when they affirm that by for- 
tifying the authority of the Holy See they fortify 
the spiritual power, since, according to their own 
theory, they never separate the temporal power from 
the spiritual power, and since they openly aim at 
theocracy. Surely I am the sworn foe of Caesarian 
Papacy. I never have ceased, and never will cease, 
to combat it even in its mildest forms, in the guise of 
Concordats ; but I none the less detest Papal Cassar- 
ism as it appears in the Roman theocracy. Let 
them call things by their names, and let them not 
color with the name of liberty the criminal efforts of 
civil and religious absolutism. 

This leads me to speak of the task of the second 
Committee, that on Discipline. This will have chiefly 



292 Home, Italy, and the Council. 

to consider the relations of the Church and State. 
It will begin, to judge from what I am told, by lay- 
ing down the principle which is at the basis of the 
Ultramontane system, the necessary subordination 
of the civil to the religious power, the duty of the 
State to be the prop, the defender of the Church, to 
deliver to her the rising generation, to watch over 
the periodical and literary press from her stand -point, 
and to punish heresy as an offense or a crime, accord- 
ing to its gravity. On this point I do not think they 
will capitulate ; the Holy Father would deem that a 
condemnation of his Encyclical which he could not 
accept. It is probable, then, that in more or less 
covert words they will condemn modern law, which 
is identical with the secularization of the State. 

" But," I said to the eminent man who imparted 
these ideas to me, " nothing is more opposed to Chris- 
tianity than the use of constraint in defending or prop- 
agating the truth." " Constraint ! " he replied ; " but 
we do not desire it. Nothing is more opposed to our 
ideas." " But," I returned, " how will you deal with 
those who are not convinced by your teachings, for 
men are not born Christians." " We will persuade 
them by addressing their hearts and minds." " Very 
good, if they listen, but if they are obstinate ? " My 
companion kept silence, for people know too well 
what the Ultramontanist system implies for oppo- 
nents and schismatics. 

They gave me to understand that, in view of the 
unhappy times, they might abate somewhat from the 
rigor of their principles wherever it was necessary, 
that is, wherever they are not the stronger ; for it is 
well understood that when the Church finds a gov- 
ernment after its own heart she concludes Concordats 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 293 

such as Austria and South America know. She 
strives as nearly as possible to approach her ideal, 
which is at Rome. Prudent men, who understand 
the requirements of politics, would wish them to 
regulate in a uniform manner the mode of living 
with what they call, by a delicious euphuism, hypo- 
thetical governments. This is the customary expres- 
sion for States which have not submitted themselves 
to the sway of the absolute law, or the Papal law. 
With them every thing is but hypothetical — freedom 
of conscience, freedom of education, that of the press, 
vacillating hypotheses — all, like the philosophy 
whence they spring, destined doubtless to pass away ; 
but as these hypotheses for the moment are quite vital 
— as considerable powers side with them — it would not 
be amiss to make terms with them while waiting for 
the return of the reign of God. This is the opinion of 
prudent bishops, but the zealots do not hear with 
that ear, and they triumph ; they will issue new edi- 
tions of the Syllabus and the Encyclical. Surely the 
Committee on Discipline will have wherewith to oc- 
cupy their leisure, and all the more so, because they 
will have to treat the thorny question of ecclesiastical 
estates. 

As to the Committee on Religious Orders, it will 
have to look closely to their present constitution, and 
to study the modifications that should be introduced. 
The Committee on Missions will have a very delicate 
question for its order of the day, that of the relations 
to be formed with Oriental sects which more or less 
approximate the Catholic type. One would be ter- 
rified at the labors which would be incumbent on 
the Committees of the Council had not the Roman 
managers provided against their fatigue, and greatly 



294 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

abridged their labors, through a well-adjusted com- 
miseration in arranging all questions. I have been 
given to understand that they hope to profit largely 
by the light of the preparatory congregations. They 
will also have to consider the means of approxima- 
tion with the Greek religion. 

The Sultan gives his full approbation to these 
efforts, because he is very glad of any thing that can 
enfeeble the power of Russia. They are busying 
themselves, too, with Protestants who may be tempt- 
ed to use the occasion to treat of their reunion with 
the Church. The Holy Father has named a certain 
number of theologians with whom they can confer. 
Already certain English pastors seem disposed to 
hold a parley. They speak also of ten Rhenish Prus- 
sian pastors who declare their readiness to return to 
the pale of the Church, if they will concede to them 
priestly marriage and communion in both kinds. 
We shall soon know what will result from these 
efforts at approximation. In my eyes they are of no 
importance, because they come from men who in real- 
ity are already Catholics. The reserves which they 
still make are insignificant when compared with what 
they have conceded. For myself I should without 
sorrow see the Catholic elements retained in the 
Reformed Churches following their affinity to the 
end. Positions should be clear and marked in the 
great religious struggle that is preparing. The ritu- 
alism that is striving to stifle spiritual religion, and 
the Neo-Lutheranism awakened by sacramental ma- 
terialism and sacerdotalism, are out of place in Prot- 
estant Churches ; they are enemies in the place. 
Let them move out with flying colors and draw up 
under the standard of Rome, unless they will purge 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 295 

out the Romish leaven which is in the depths of their 
hearts and minds. I cannot grant that any son of 
the Reform, truly consistent with its principles, can 
have for a moment the notion of coming to treat, with 
the Council of the Vatican. Whatever concessions 
he may obtain, he sacrifices every thing by recog- 
nizing the authority of such an assembly to decide 
sovereignly, and in the name of God, ecclesiastical 
doctrine and discipline. He thus abjures the essen- 
tial principle of evangelical Protestantism, which 
puts no authority above Holy Scripture, or rather, 
Jesus Christ speaking in the Scriptures. 

Besides, how can we forget the profound modifica- 
tions which the ancient constitution of the Church 
has undergone? I admit the indisputable authority 
of no Council, not even of the (Ecumenical Councils 
of the fourth and fifth centuries. But at least they 
might claim to be true representatives of the Chris- 
tian Church. The bishops were not named by one 
of themselves, trenching on the monarch; they were 
elected by the members of the Church, and laymen 
were not reduced to the condition of helotism to 
which the Catholic hierarchy condemns them. They 
received no watchword from the Bishop of Rome, 
whose presence or absence did not greatly disturb 
them. The decisions of the Council of Nice did not 
need his sanction that they might be universally re- 
ceived. But if I would find a true Christian Council, 
I have only to turn back to that which was held in 
the upper chamber at Jerusalem, and whose deceitful 
image is presented us in the painting that adorns the 
hall of the Council of the Vatican. No president by 
right directs its debates; each speaks with entire in- 
dependence. In place of bishops I see elders of the 



296 Bome, Italy, and the Council. 

Church named by it, exercising over it a purely 
moral influence ; simple believers witness and share 
in the deliberations. So little do the Apostles claim 
the right to impose their opinions that the idea which 
prevails comes from James, the Lord's brother, who 
is not an Apostle, and the decree of the Council is 
sent in the name of the entire assembly. " The 
Apostles, elders, and brethren to our brethren among 
the Gentiles who are at Antioch, in Syria, and in 
Cilicia, greeting. It seemed good unto us, being as- 
sembled of one accord, to send unto you chosen men. 
It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to 
lay no other burden upon you than these necessary 
things." This simple introduction to the resolutions 
of the Council of Jerusalem scatters all the preten- 
sions of the Councils of the hierarchy, and truly I do 
not know how they can get clear from the precision 
of these simple terms, which show what a true repre- 
sentation of the Christian Church is. 

As to the infallibility of the Council, the same 
eminent personage observed to me yesterday that it 
should not be confounded with inspiration. The 
Scripture is a divine word, but the word of the Coun- 
cil is a human w T ord divinely preserved from error. 
Here is another of those distinctions whose meaning 
entirely eludes me ; how can a human word divinely 
preserved from error be other than an inspired word? 
But every thing in these pretensions to infallibility 
amazes me ; the Council sees no tongues of fire resting 
on the heads of its members; every thing goes on as 
in a deliberative body ; they discuss, they vote : for- 
merly they put more than one vile spring in play, as 
is evident in the case of the Council of Trent. Up 
to a given point w r e are fully in the order of nature, 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 297 

then all of a sudden the supernatural begins ; it 
triturates, if I dare say it, to the bottom of the urns 
wherein the Fathers deposit their votes; it comes 
forth from it glorious and immaculate. And yet it 
does not attach to all the votes ! The majority alone 
is the object of the miracle ; the minority has noth- 
ing to do with it — remain in the low regions of the 
fallible reason. Here are miracles of a very peculiar 
type — half prodigy, half natural. We can know the 
precise means employed to bring about the result. 
These means are very simple, but the result itself is 
divine. Thanks to God, the true supernatural bears 
no analogy with this which I have just characterized, 
and of which Eome is about to give us probably the 
last representation, for I have a presentiment that 
what we see to-day will never be repeated. 

E. de Peessense. 



298 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 



LETTER XII. 

Another Contrast — The Oratorio of the Pontiff of the Immaculate Con- 
ception — Review of the Papal Army — Its Composition and Condi- 
tion — The Committee on Conciliation — Regulations of the Council 
— Social Life at Rome — The Expenses of the Council — Fruits of 
Mariolatry — Vexation of the Liberals — Their Policy — A Morning 
Ramble — The Bull of Excommunication — Comments — The Com- 
mittees on Faith and Discipline — The Anti-Council — Its Follies 
and End — The True Anti-Council — Probable Success of the Ultra- 
montanists — The Italian Government and its Difficulties — Protest- 
ant Missions — Savonarola — Needs and Hopes. 

Rome, December, 1869. 

Dear Sir, — For the sake of greater freedom I still 
employ the form of a journal. Permit me to lay be- 
fore your eyes yet another of those contrasts with 
which Rome abounds, and which I strove to depict to 
you in my second letter. 

I went last Sunday to Saint Peter's to witness one 
of the solemn Advent masses over which the Holy 
Father presides. It w r as a representation, with a full 
orchestra, of the Catholic worship in all its magnifi- 
cence. The sun shed vivid light on the basilica; 
the bishops were present in a body at the ceremony. 
The choir of the Sistine Chapel chanted the office. 
Going to his throne, the Pope passed through long 
lines of halberdiers and noble guards, then he put on 
his miter and received the fealty of the prelates. 
Mass was performed by a cardinal. You see that 
nothing was lacking in the pomp of this service, 
rendered more brilliant and solemn by the pres- 
ence of seven hundred bishops. This was truly the 



Eome, Italy, asd the Council. 299 

monarchical Catholicism of the present time, the re- 
ligion which speaks to the senses and fascinates them 
in order the more easily to subdue the understanding 
and the will. Thence I went, without any gradual 
transition, into two Catacombs generally closed to 
visitors, and for which I had obtained special permis- 
sion, the Catacombs of Saint Priscilla and of Saints 
Peter and Marcellinus. Nothing is finer than the 
road which conducts to the second. We go out by 
the major gate, which is an antique gate ; we pace 
alongside the aqueducts which impart such a poetic 
sadness to the Roman Campagna; at every step we 
encounter some abandoned ruin. On the left is 
Mount Soracte and the Sabine mountains ; while the 
Albanian hills, with their graceful undulations, bound 
the horizon. The melancholy inspired by the im- 
posing ruins with which the way is sown is invol- 
untarily softened before a landscape whose sweet 
harmony is not to be surpassed. Beaching a remote 
farm, we find the entrance of the Catacomb hard by 
an ancient pagan temple, and descend into the Chris- 
tian necropolis. What a change of scene when, un- 
der these somber arches, we think of the mass of 
Saint Peter's ! What an eloquent refutation of the 
pretensions of the Pope King ! I indeed found two 
crowns in the Catacomb, but they were like that of 
Jesus Christ, and girdled the bleeding brow of a con- 
fessor. Among the numerous svmbols with which 
these Catacombs abound, I have not encountered one 
to justify the Catholic system. Instead of a ruling 
and tyrannical religious power, I only saw the merci- 
ful love of the Good Shepherd seeking his lost sheep; 
instead of a Christianity triumphing proudly over its 
foes, I only saw a militant Christianity, engaged in 



300 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

the most redoubtable struggle, and unweariedly re- 
peating her immortal confidence — now with the three 
youth in the furnace; now with Jonah, who was 
swallowed for three days only to be born again to a 
better life; now with Noah, saving his ark amid the 
waves of the deluge ; now again with Daniel in the 
lion's den : all these symbols, speaking of a humble 
and courageous faith which clung to things invisible 
and cast its anchor within the vail, are multiplied in 
these two Catacombs. They are likewise filled with 
prayer. The Christian men or women whose re- 
mains have been deposited in these vaults are pre- 
sented to us with hands lifted toward heaven. The 
incense of the saints has burned under these arches 
as nowhere else. Contemplating them, we breathe 
its sacred perfume. Finally, there is no trace of 
legends in any of these frescos. The most interest- 
ing, and now the most celebrated, is in the Catacomb 
of Saint Priscilla; it is a representation of the na- 
tivity of Jesus Christ. Mary holds the infant Jesus 
pressed to her bosom. The star of Bethlehem has 
paused above her. A prophet designates the child 
and seems to say, Lo, the Desire of all nations ! You 
think you recognize Isaiah in him. This fresco seems 
to belong to the highest antiquity, perhaps to the 
first half of the second century. Very ancient in- 
scriptions have been discovered in its neighborhood. 
The ornamentation of the vault is in simple and ex- 
quisite taste, which suggests the classic style, and 
cannot be later than the second century. They try 
to draw great advantage from this picture in favor of 
the worship of Mary. I do not see the least indica- 
tion which can be interpreted in that way. The 
Virgin has no halo, she is not the object of adoration ; 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 301 

it is the child that is designated by the prophet. I 
should even say that what constitutes the beauty of 
this first of the Madonnas is, that it is not set over 
the altar, that she has not the priestly stiffness of 
sacred art; she is living, her beauty is simple and 
expressive, she is truly a daughter of men, a flower 
of Galilee that has retained its grace. That inex- 
pressible Raphael-like touch which forms its charm 
depends precisely on this absence of idolatry. The 
more idolatry grows, the more art is abased ; nothing 
then equals a miraculous image. They would give 
all the masterpieces of the Renaissance for a Ma- 
donna which, according to some gross tradition, has 
moved its eyes. I attribute to the development of 
Mariolatry, in part, the abasement of the artistic in- 
spiration in the religious domain. They wish to 
make idols, and they will no longer create types whol- 
ly human and divine, that let the inward fire breathe 
athwart expressive loveliness. 

But in the matter of abased, hypocritical art, blend- 
ing the sacred and profane, nothing can equal the 
burlesque representation given last Sunday in the 
Church of the Holy Apostles in honor of the Coun- 
cil, before a large number of cardinals, bishops, and 
priests. The theater is interdicted on the Sundays 
preceding Advent, which did not prevent the organ- 
izers of the great spiritual Council of the twelfth of 
December from drawing largely upon it. But why 
should not the most worldly airs be sanctified when 
once they have been sung by the Pontifical Academy 
of the Immaculate Conception ? This association, we 
read in its printed programme, is wont to celebrate 
every year a great concert in honor of the Virgin. 
It could find no more solemn occasion of being faith- 



302 Some, Italy, and the Council. 

ful to this custom than the opening of the (Ecumeni- 
cal Council. This year it will assign a high place to 
the praise of the Pontiff to whom we owe this convo- 
cation. A cardinal will open the solemnity with a 
prose, which will place the Council under the pro- 
tection of the Virgin. Then we shall execute hymns 
in divers tongues. The Academy will make these 
hymns alternate with three parts of an Oratorio enti- 
tled " The Pontiff of the Immaculate Conception," 
in which the glory of the Holy Father is associated 
with that of Mary. The Virgin will deign to bless 
our poor homage. She who is the mother of eternal 
wisdom, the holy protector of our faith, can only 
bless the labors of an Academy which thinks solely 
of developing true knowledge. 

Let us now see in what manner it develops this 
knowledge. The first part of the Oratorio is set to the 
air which opens Bellini's opera of " The Puritans. 55 
It represents the faithful people praying God, during 
the Conclave, to give his Church a chief after his own 
heart. Then comes a joyful chant from the Roman 
people after the election of Pius IX. The chorus 
celebrates the benefits of the amnesty to an air from 
Meverbeer's u Robert le Diable , 55 blended with an air 
from the Sappho of Saccini. The hymn devoted to 
the hegira of Gaeta is sung to an air from Verdi's 
Macbeth. The patriotic master, whose attachment 
to the Italian cause is well known, also contributes 
the cavatinas necessary to celebrate the happy return 
of the Holy Father, " accomplished through unhoped- 
for succor, 55 says the libretto ingeniously, which seems 
to suggest an army of angels descending from heaven. 
Alas ! it is well known that these angels wore the 
red pantaloon of our troops of the line. The libretto 



Home, Italy, and the Council. 303 

adds, " O thou Holy Virgin, who alone hast crushed 
the serpent's head, thou alone canst scatter the infer- 
nal throng which has invaded the See of the Holy 
Father." For once the miracle was not complete, 
being complicated with artillery. The triumphal 
hymn of the Immaculate Conception is borrowed 
from the " Nebuchadnezzar " of the same Yerdi. 
After the canticle of the Immaculate Conception we 
have that of the Syllabus, still to an air from Nebu- 
chadnezzar, an opera whose theme suggests the dan- 
gers men risk in taking themselves for God. The 
protection of the Virgin seems to have extended a 
very weak shield over him whom it sheltered, for it 
did not prevent his losing the finest jewels of his 
crown. But this is the stand-point of proud reason. 
Faith perceives her intervention in the proclamation 
of the Syllabus, which is better than all provinces. 
I think the kingdom of Italy would very gladly join 
in that hosanna. I only detach from the canticle of 
the centenary these words addressed to Mary, u O 
Mary, who dost protect the Church, we have confi- 
dence in thee alone ! " The music of Meyerbeer's 
" Robert le Diable " accompanies a chant in adula- 
tion of Pius IX. on occasion of the jubilee on the 
fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. Its flattery 
is so gross that nowhere else is there a theater so low 
in grade that it would not be hissed there if addressed 
to the sovereign of the land. Rossini and Donizetti 
are also put into requisition. The " Eleanore " of the 
latter master furnishes the romance of the Virgin's 
memorial with a strong reinforcement of amorous 
roulades. This fine masterpiece is continued in the 
triumphant hymn of the Council, in which an air 
from Sappho alternates with those of Rossini's La 



304 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

Charite. The Holy Spirit is totally eclipsed by 
Mary, who is to animate the bishops with divine lire. 
The oratorio closes with an obedient homage paid to 
the Holy Father in the name of Christendom. Ros- 
sini has the honor of furnishing the music with his 
two operas, William Tell and the Siege of Corinth. 
The Council is only named for form's sake. The 
chorus chants, " We swear, O our Lord, to render 
thee the homage of our thoughts, for thou only canst 
dispel this night of error ; thou art the fountain of 
truth. We promise to follow thy faith were it at the 
price of the most cruel martyrdom. 51 

It is odd that this oath of enslavement should be 
set to the air of the famous oath of Helvetian freedom 
in " William Tell." It is a strange way of preparing 
for martyrdom to sing a medley of worldly music. 
Nothing could better depict the abasement of Catho- 
lic art of Rome, and also the religious jugglery which 
forbids the opera at the theater in order to transport 
it to the foot of the altar, with an accompaniment of 
frenzied applause. It is true, that the hands which 
made the uproar were hands wonted to consecrate 
the host. No female voice was heard, and principles 
were all safe ; yet the sopranos went up very high, 
and suggested the Orient in its most hideous customs. 
I forgot to say that in guise of a ballet between the 
various parts of the Oratorio, we had the diversion 
of hymns to the Virgin and the Pope sung in differ- 
ent languages by the pupils of the Propaganda. 
High privilege to hear the same idolatrous platitudes 
in Arabic, English, Latin, and many other tongues ! 
This buffoonish and religious solemnity bears the 
complete stamp of the Gesu. I thought I ought to 
make it known to you somewhat in detail, for it 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 305 

seems to me one of the most characteristic of present 
circumstances. The Council will also be celebrated 
by a great review of the Pontifical troops at the 
Villa Borghese. Let us doubt no longer, this one 
will far surpass the Council of Jerusalem, which 
lacked the accompaniment of tender roulades and 
cannon salutes. 

December 16. — The review took place at the Villa 
Borghese in splendid weather, under the magnificent 
shade which forms the beauty of that promenade. 
There all the Pontifical troops were assembled : 
Zouaves, the so-called Antibes Legion, whose frame- 
work is French, carbineers, artillery, chasseurs, dra- 
goons, and police. People noticed especially a corps 
of mountaineers of agile aspect in picturesque cos- 
tume. They are meant for the repression of brig- 
andage, at least of that which forgets time and place, 
for, long permitted and encouraged on the Neapoli- 
tan frontier, it turns culpable in the Sabine mount- 
ains. It is pretended, too, that there is a great con- 
fusion of ideas in this respect, and that this sort of 
mountain police, whose flower certainly has figured 
in brigandage, has sorry reminiscences. Its mere 
costume would suffice to maintain these : it is that of 
the famous u Fra Diavolo." I should not like to en- 
counter such protectors of order in a gorge of the 
Apennines. However, the effect of the review w T as 
charming. Eomans and foreigners of distinction 
flowed together under the oaks and parasol pines. 
The military bands played their finest airs, and I 
noted a hymn to the Pope by Gounod. The bishops 
thronged together, and applauded, either mingled 
with the crowd or on a terrace of the garden. Thus 

the two militias of the Pope w T ere combined. The 

20 



306 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

fine sun, nevertheless, shone upon a fearful scandal, 
for all who remembered that this armed force is in 
the service of the pretended representative of Jesus 
Christ. This very evening I heard a distinguished 
French priest covertly express a feeling of regret, 
which in his mouth meant much. 

The Pontifical troops would be a very feeble bar- 
rier against revolution, but for the French army. 
The Roman portion of the army, except some un- 
mounted and mounted police, and the officers, who 
are brave gentlemen, totally lacks solidity. It is 
quite generally thought that in the day of battle they 
would execute a fugue more brilliant than all those 
of Bach. The Antibes legion, composed of French- 
men, would doubtless bravely face fire; but as it is 
recruited a little at hazard among our regiments, it 
is not convenient in peace, and lacks discipline. De- 
sertions from it are very frequent. As to the Zou- 
aves, they possess bravery and conviction ; they are 
the elect. But most of these young gentlemen came 
to Rome with chivalrous enthusiasm, in the hope of 
combating the enemies of the Papacy. They had 
often been told that the convocation of the Council 
would bring on an outburst of bad passions, and then 
there would be fine shooting. 

The Council has come, and it is found that the 
Knights of Malta will suffice to guard it. The Zou- 
aves, then, find themselves reduced to the ordinary 
service of a garrison troop ; the military administra- 
tion tends to confound them more and more with the 
regular army. Many of them also begin to grow 
very weary of their present position. As most of the 
enlistments are for six months, it is to be believed that 
large numbers will return to their homes, and that 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 307 

gradually the corps of Zouaves will resemble troops 
recruited by engagement bounties. They will return 
home, hardly edified by w T hat they have seen at 
Rome. Their language is even imprinted with bitter- 
ness : thev have retained the same enthusiasm for the 
Holy Father, w r hose goodness to them is paternal; but 
they know the interior chronicle of the Church; they 
understand what cardinals' purple often covers. They 
have lifted the mantle of hypocrisy, which, under 
decent and devout appearances, conceals the greatest 
corruption in this Zion of Catholicism. Their sojourn 
at Rome changes, not their ideas, but rather their 
judgments of men and things. Yet they have not 
come to the point which our soldiers reached when 
in garrison at Rome. They became such grumblers, 
and so anti-Catholic, that their discourses shook 
what their bayonets sustained. And the authorities 
preferred to send them to Civita Vecchia, where they 
can only speak ill of the Mediterranean, and where 
they taste the most formidable listlessness that can be 
imagined. They are nevertheless the only efficient 
props of the temporal Papacy, and the Emperor is 
the true and efficacious chief of the Knights of Malta, 
who guard the Council. Truly, he gives proof of 
rare goodness of heart, that would be more admirable 
were it clear of political calculation. It is true that 
the calculation is radically wrong. His Majesty 
Napoleon III. alone makes an episcopal reunion 
possible, wmere they are about to decree solemnly 
the condemnation of the principles on which French 
society reposes. In recompense he only receives 
benedictions for his soul and very real marks of ill- 
will. I have already related that the Roman curia 
does all it can to thwart his desire of pursuing the 



308 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

magnificent excavations of the Palace of Caesar. Not 
only is the convent of women, which arrests the work, 
allowed to remain, but they have just laid the founda- 
tions of a new church in another part of the Mont 
Palatine. It is perfectly useless for the purpose of 
worship, but it is a very ingenious means of putting 
an insurmountable and sacred obstacle in the way of 
the plans of the mighty protector whom they hate in 
the depth of their souls. This perfectly confirms the 
remark of an Abbe after Mentana, who said of the 
French, " Our ingratitude will cover our gratitude." 
Let us be just. The Roman managers do not like ar- 
chaeological labors which they do not direct ; the most 
fruitful excavations undertaken by a layman, who 
does not belong to themselves, are under suspicion 
with them, and they are pleased to chastise such im- 
pertinence. They like only the science of which 
they hold the key, and approve those discoveries 
alone which have paid for their patent, and brevet 
with an undivided submission. 

The Council has confined itself, for a few days, to 
nominating the Committees of which I have spoken. 
The Committee of Conciliation was named Friday 
the twelfth. This is no doubt less needful with our 
modern manners than in the rude sixteenth century. 
The debates in the Council of Trent often assumed an 
alarming turn. Sarpi relates that two theologians who 
were opposed to each other on the question of justifi- 
cation by faith, seized one another by the beard so firmly 
that they could not be separated. Were beards as 
long in Europe as in the sixteenth century, and man- 
ners as violent, the question of infallibility might 
well lead to similar scandals ; but it all goes on in 
the depths of the heart. Besides, the Ultramontane 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 309 

prelates know how to say every thing with neatness 
and grace ; as one of our poets has said, 

" E'en hate itself must use the tones of love." 

They envelope the most odious theories in charm- 
ing formulas. These are the confectionery of Catholi- 
cism, was the. charming remark which I heard last 
night in a Roman drawing-room. They draw sugar 
from the vilest substances, as skillful confectioners 
can. Thanks to them, the Committee of Conciliation 
will be a sinecure. The other three, the Commis- 
sions on Faith, Discipline, and the Christian Orient, 
are to be named by ballot. Their influence, more- 
over, will be very potent; according to a regulation, 
which seems to me very ingenious, the propositions 
elaborated for several months by congregations ap- 
pointed by the Pope will not be elaborated anew by 
committees. They are to be presented in the lump 
to the Council, which will decide at once all those 
which will not awaken too great discussion. You 
perceive how much this limits the leadership of the 
Council; opposition shows itself with much more 
difficulty in a large assembly than in a committee. 
The pressure of the majority is much stronger when 
encountered ever compact and ardent. The Papacy 
evidently has free play. The tradition of ancient 
Councils is invoked, but this important and delicate 
question of order will not be submitted to the delib- 
erations of the Assembly. The Gallican bishops 
stand firm on the essential things; but it is to be 
feared that at the outset they may lack skill, and, 
perhaps, firmness. Yet there is talk about a very 
sharp altercation which was provoked by the method 



9 



10 Rome, Italy, and the Council, 



of the ballot in the nomination of the Committee on 
Faith. . Naturally, it is impossible to know these 
things in a precise way, on account of the obligation 
of secrecy imposed on the bishops. 

For the moment, social life is very brilliant at 
Rome. A fashionable dvawing-room here has now a 
peculiar aspect, with which nothing else in Europe 
can compare. Bishops and cardinals elbow fine 
ladies in splendid toilets, and epaulets devoted to the 
Holy See, and foreigners of all nations — they talk 
only about the Council ; the mystery surrounding it 
excites curiosity. The great ladies side for given 
opinions as in political life. One drawing-room 
patronizes Papal infallibility, another is very much 
opposed to it, and forms an opposition drawing-room. 
People are naturally obliged to express themselves on 
such delicate matters with rare prudence ; yet passion 
crops out. What strikes me is, that in all that I 
hear about the Council, the course of its labors and 
the result to be expected from it, they forget only 
one thing, namely, that it is supposed to be presided 
over and directed by the Holy Spirit. People speak 
of it as we speak at Paris of our Corps Legislatif, 
when we are calculating the chances of a law which 
we have at heart. Hopes and fears are inappropri- 
ate when people count on miraculous illumination ; 
but in reality they do not count upon it, and they 
fall back constantly into petty calculations. I ought 
also to acknowledge that people are very benevolent 
in the higher society of Rome; that one is received 
there with perfect good-will even when he follows 
another flag, and that you encounter no bigoted exclu- 
sion. Even here the spirit of the times has exerted 
its enlarging influence, and I was able to satisfy 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 311 

myself that very heretical books were there read and 
relished. 

The great expenses which the Council imposes on 
the Holy Father will be partly paid by voluntary 
subscriptions. I was told yesterday that within ten 
years he had received near twenty millions of dollars 
for the expenses of his temporal power. A fright- 
ful figure when we reflect that it is taken from 
the spiritual necessities of the Church in a world 
where pagans are still in the majority. The present 
collection is, in itself, entirely legitimate. But it 
furnishes good souls, w r ho burn to exhale their fanati- 
cism, a very precious occasion to display it. The 
journal of M. Yeuillot, The Univers, publishes a daily 
list of subscriptions, accompanied by the exclamations 
of the donors. At the pitch of his quarrel with Mon- 
seigneur Dupanloup, he registered with ill concealed 
satisfaction violent attacks on his adversary. Since 
the Council has begun he no longer publishes them, 
but he gives in full all the follies that can pass 
through the brain of a fervent bigot. Brave country 
curates, or convinced beadles, pay five francs for a 
reverberating exclamation in favor of the infallible 
Papacy, and imagine they have acquired immortal 
glory as soldiers of the faith. Among these sub- 
scriptions I have observed one which perfectly ex- 
presses the opinion current in the circles of ignorant 
piety. It runs about like this :, " Holy Virgin, re- 
member that Pius IX. proclaimed your Immaculate 
Conception, and cause his infallibility to be pro- 
claimed." This simple man imagines that the Pope 
rendered the Virgin immaculate, and he demands 
the recompense of so great a service. However, it 
is impossible to conceive all the absurdities to which 



312 Rome,- Italy, and the Council. 

Mariolatry can give birth in the ranks of the simple 
and of the lower clergy. One of my friends heard a 
Capuchin preaching at Rome on the conversation of 
the child Jesus with the doctors of the temple. He 
openly sided with Mary when she reproached him for 
remaining behind, and taxed him with impertinence. 
He dared to add, " Behold his punishment on the 
cross." I well know that this excess of stupidity 
which turns to blasphemy, is a particular case ; but 
I am persuaded that, should we presently examine all 
the sermons delivered in honor of the Yirgin, in con- 
vents and country parishes, we should be terrified at 
the progress of idolatry. 

God the Father and Jesus Christ are banished bv 
popular piety to that obscure distance, where the 
Greeks placed the mysterious Saturn, concentrating 
all their glances on the brilliant and charming divin- 
ities of Olympus. Mary occupies the foreground in 
Catholic piety, at least in its popular manifestations. 
And I shall attach no importance to the negative 
triumphs of Liberal Catholicism in the Council, should 
it obtain them, so long as it shall not have repealed 
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. 
While this dogma shall be recognized and accepted, 
with itself it will maintain in fact the infallibility of 
the Papacy and the good right of Mariolatry. Were 
Liberal Catholicism firm and courageous, it w^ould 
distinctly put the question on this ground ; it might 
then hope to restore its Church, and inaugurate a 
phase of religious renewal. It would be needful also 
to affirm the good done by modern liberty, and not 
allow it to be treated as a disorder with which the 
Church has, perforce, to make terms. A Council un- 
der these conditions, without realizing all that we 



Bome, Italy, and the Council. 313 

believe conformable to the truth, would be a benefit, 
and would withdraw more than one advantage from 
the passionate enemies of the Gospel. But, if Lib- 
eral Catholicism is content with an equivocation — if it 
thinks to triumph because the dogma, practiced and 
triumphant, shall not be formulated — then it would 
lull itself in vain illusions ; these very illusions 
would render it more timid ; and while it should fall 
asleep over a chimerical victory, the papal usurpa- 
tion would daily grow, and some new Encyclical, 
worthy of the preceding one, will come to teach the 
Church and the world that Jesuitism, like the reed 
in the fable, bends and does not break, but lifts up 
its head with the first favorable wind. 

December 17. — Last evening I gathered up in a 
great and brilliant company much valuable informa- 
tion about the Council. It is not passing on so 
sweetly as may be thought ; parties are coming to 
light. The adversaries of infallibility even appeal 
quite irritated at the regulation which I have made 
known to you, and which gives from the outset 
a preponderating influence to the papal congrega- 
tions. Further, the Holy Father has nominated a 
Committee of twenty-two members, to which every 
proposition must be submitted before being pre- 
sented to the Council, and it makes no decision which 
has not been ratified by the Pope. He has also 
appointed five consulting theologians on the great 
question of infallibility, who are all quite pronounced 
in favor of the new dogma. These preliminary 
measures clearly reveal the firm intention of the 
Romish party to reach their ends by fair means or 
foul. The Liberals have also attempted to protest 
against this arrangement; they name a bishop who 



314 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

on this point was thrice called to order by the Cardi- 
nal-President. They even mention a much- graver 
fact ; a French cardinal will this very morning leave 
Rome and the Council. He is said to have declared 
that he w T ould have nothing to do with a Council 
destitute of freedom ; probably he did not express 
himself so clearly, but his step has been so under- 
stood; decidedly our French bishops appear better 
than w r as anticipated beforehand ; twenty are reck- 
oned under the flag of Monseigneur Dupanloup. 
This is because you can never foresee what men will 
do gathered in a deliberative assembly. Napoleon 
I. thought himself very sure of the National Council 
which he assembled in 1811, to sustain him in his 
difference with Pius VII. The regulation which he 
had invented might be compared with a cord put 
around a man's neck, and which on the least pressure 
strangles him. And yet the Assembly turned out re- 
calcitrant, and he w r as forced to cast certain prelates 
into the dungeons of Yincennes, that the Council 
might not turn in favor of the Pope whom it was 
meant to combat. Surely the Castle of Saint Angelo 
will not open before any of the bishops who sit here ; 
but what well-informed men most dread is the re- 
laxing influence of this city, the moral malaria of 
this world without frankness — with supple, caressing, 
and false manners. The first concession of the Fa- 
thers was the acceptance of the Council at Rome ; 
the most recent tradition allowed them to demand 
another city, where their independence w r ould be 
more assured. ISTor should it be forgotten that the 
Holy Father has a crushing majority in his favor, 
and that if they are content to count votes without 
weighing them, he is sure to conquer along the whole 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 315 

line. To him a check would be irreparable, even 
though it might be a real advantage for the Church, 
as I have endeavored to show you. And he will 
move heaven and earth — I mean the heaven of which 
he is master ; which is not that of life eternal, but 
that factitious heaven whence he causes anathemas 
and indulgences to rain at will. Whatever the 
Council may decide, the result of its decisions will be 
very grave, and will inaugurate a new phase in the 
history of Catholicism. Before leaving Home, I hope 
to know the composition of the Committee on Faith, 
named by ballot. 

This will disclose the number of voices belonging 
to the various parties. There is much animation in 
drawing-rooms, and passion breaks out. Last evening 
I met one of the chief of those called here the non- 
infalliblists, Cardinal Schwartzenberg. He shows 
himself very decided and energetic, and causes great 
scandal in the ante-chambers of the Papacy. Lord 
Acton, who has just been promoted to the peerage 
by Mr. Gladstone, and who belongs in the front rank 
of Liberal Catholicism, will not succeed in leading 
the English bishops back to a reasonable temper ; they 
will remain the most fiery of the Ultramontanes. 

I was told yesterday that Monseigneur Maret, the 
firmest of Gallicans, is lodged in the same house with 
M. Louis Yeuillot. There is a curious approximation 
which forms a very marked antithesis. 

December 19. — For a few davs, Rome has adorned 
herself with her most enchanting grace. The heaven 
is resplendent and cloudless, and the moon envelops 
monuments and ruins in her silvery vail. Yesterday 
morning I walked for several hours along the abrupt 
hills that line the right bank of the Tiber. Nothing 



316 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

more poetic and grand can be imagined than the 
changing views obtained as we pass from hill to hill 
athwart enormous reeds and thick brambles. Cattle 
and sheep graze on the grassy slopes ; rounded pines 
and tall cypresses inclose the landscape in the most 
picturesque fashion. The Tiber rolls its yellowish 
w T aters under the severe arches of the Ponte Molle, 
and breaks into a thousand, charming windings. 
From the height of Monte Mario, we have on the left 
the hills of ancient Etruria Soracte, that seems a 
dome of verdure ; the Apennines, whose snows glitter 
in the sun ; and finally, the enchanting curve of the 
Sabine Mountains. The desert plain forms the fore- 
ground. In front rise the mountains of Latium; on 
the right is the plain which goes to die on the shore of 
the sea of Ostia; and then, Rome reveals its number- 
less domes. Every thing is silent and sublime in these 
prospects, which become truly glorious under this 
inflamed sky. Never did I better understand the 
sovereign charm exercised by this land— fairer in its 
majestic sadness than the most brilliant scenes of a 
civilization in full activity. This morning — the last 
Sunclav before Christmas — Saint Peter's will be the 
theater of the most pompous ceremonies of the Cath- 
olic worship. Beholding from my windows the splen- 
did basilica bathed in the purple splendor of a fine 
day, I imagine the little upper chamber in Jerusalem 
where Jesus pronounced words that have created a 
new moral world, and come resounding to the depths 
of our souls, like his Come forth / in the depths of the 
tomb of Lazarus ; while the w r ords of the Pontiff" 
awaken no other echo than that of the arches of his 
temple. His are words of death, and not words of life. 
He has just pronounced one which might well be 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 317 

mortal to the Council. The Uhita Cattolica published 
yesterday the Bull of Excommunication which is to 
accompany the opening of the great assizes of Cathol- 
icism. It was known that it had been read in the 
second session, but people did not think it would so 
soon be laid before the public. In reality it is a 
striking confirmation of the Syllabus, and an authori- 
tative act of the Pope which decides from the first 
day some of the most important questions which 
were to be submitted to the Council ; among others, 
all that bear on the relations of temporal power and 
spiritual power. Thus the Holy Father excommuni- 
cates formally all those who impose any restraint on 
the rights and liberties of the Church. Now these 
rights and liberties are perfectly defined in the last 
Encyclical and the Syllabus ; they are the right of the 
Church to suppress all liberties except her own ; be- 
ginning with freedom of conscience, of the press, and 
of education, which it calls pestilential, and winch 
it has carefully set aside in all the Concordats which 
it has recently concluded. For her, liberty means 
the total subordination of the State to her dogmas 
and discipline ; in a word, it is the Roman rule. 
Thus, whoever does not accept this odiously theo- 
cratic rule is excommunicated. She would do better 
to say, that she hurls her anathema at all Europe. 
Lest we should be mistaken here, the excommunica- 
tion assaults one of the fundamental principles of 
modern law, namely, the equality of all citizens be- 
fore the law and the unity of jurisdiction. Excom- 
municated are all who turn aside clergymen from the 
ecclesiastical tribunals. This is a thunderbolt which 
smites France, as well as England, Germany, Spain, 
and Italy. It is known that the German Catholics 



318 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

had declared that they could not submit to the pro- 
hibitions of the u Roman Index," because in times of 
struggle and free knowledge they could not ignore 
religious discussion. The recent bull takes good care 
to declare outside the Church whoever shall read a 
forbidden book. As the Pope addresses himself not 
only to individuals, but also to governments, he there- 
by proscribes all States which do not abandon the 
press to ecclesiastical, or rather Roman, censorship. 
But you have not yet heard the grand peal of pon- 
tifical thunder. It is not about to smite impiety 
blasphemy against God and his Christ : no ! it con- 
centrates all its avenging; flames on those who have 
laid profane hands on the possessions of the Church. 
There is the sin which- is forgiven neither in this 
world nor in the next — for which there is no redemp- 
tion. The bull makes no distinction between the 
present and the past; it bears, then, on what was 
done ages ago, as on the Italian law concerning 
ecclesiastical estates. To touch the goods of the 
saints of the Lord, is the abomination of desolation. 
Thus you see at the outset that all modern princes are 
put outside the gate of heaven ; it seems to me that 
they acted sagely in not crossing the threshold of the 
Council to be drubbed in solemn costume in the per- 
son of their embassadors. Excommunicated also are 
all who shall not accept all the Encyclicals, and in 
general all that shall emanate from the See of Rome. 
It is declared that the excommunication can be raised 
by no bishop, unless in the article of death, and only 
for cases where the absolved shall not recover health ; 
which is a very clear warning addressed to Victor 
Emmanuel. This rnoiu propria^ which withdraws 
from the Cour.eil some of the gravest decisions which 



Eome, Italy, and the Council, 319 

were on its programme, seems to me a very suitable 
opening of the opera got up by the Jesuits ; it brings 
back to monotonous forms the theme which should 
be treated, and contains itself the idea of the work. 
The liberal bishops are too good truly to lend them- 
selves to this comedy of deliberation with the regula- 
tion collar on their necks, and under the constant 
menace of more bulls of the same sort. Besides, how 
can they resist the enormous mass of the bishops of 
the Propaganda, The Apostolical Vicars coming from 
the Orient, have the independence of our sub-pre- 
fects toward the Papacy. Discouragement is also 
succeeding irritation among the Gallican bishops; it 
appears certain that on the first day of voting, Mon- 
seigneur Dupanloup made a sudden sally, to show his 
indignation at the manner in which the deliberations 
were conducted. To-day the phalanx of his sup- 
porters is well defined. Cardinal Bonnechose, who 
had some feeble wish of opposing the Ultramontane 
movement, soon yielded. Probably the independent 
bishops will seek to leave Rome as promptly as pos- 
sible ; at least, this is what I thought I divined from 
the language of an Hungarian archbishop with whom 
I spent the evening two days ago. He is lodged at 
a hotel, so as to be like a bird on a branch, and 
return to his country on the first pretext. On the 
other hand, while the names of the Committee on 
Faith are not exactly known, it is asserted that the 
Ultramontane ticket was carried by a great majority. 
For the moment every thing seems ia preparation for 
the triumph of Papal infallibility, more or less ex- 
plicitly formulated. It is spiritedly said here that 
the Holy Father, once elevated to this height, will 
no longer be the Vicar of Jesus Christ, but that, com- 



320 Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

pared with him, Jesus Christ will fill only a second- 
ary place. Indeed, the Pope will be able at will to 
modify the instruction of the world, and w r ith even 
greater boldness substitute his Missal for the Gospel. 
December 20. — While Home was inaugurating the 
assizes of Catholic authority, Naples was celebrating 
the saturnalia of atheistic demagogy. It was an- 
nounced with much noise that on the very day when 
the Council should open, free thought would hold its 
anti-Council, and in its turn fulminate anathemas. 
The leadership of this fine enterprise belongs to a 
member of the Italian Parliament, who sits in the 
extreme left. It w T as placed under the patronage of 
Garibaldi, who is guilty of seeking to trench on the 
prophet, and who might be content with having been 
a hero. An appeal was addressed to all the enemies 
of religion ; they hoped to have an (Ecumenical 
assembly. They had only the most pitiful baccha 
nalia. The number of delegates was much inferior 
to what had been expected. They began by quarrel- 
ing over the programme. The President wished 
them to be content with laying down certain general 
principles — as the full freedom of conscience, the 
separation of Church and State, and morality inde- 
pendent of all religion. Had they been reasonable 
they would have further reduced this programme 
by excluding the last declaration, which, by entering 
upon doctrinal subjects, would lead the assembly in its 
own way to formulate dogmas; that is, to imitate the 
Council while condemning it. I could understand that 
in presence of a solemn manifestation of the principle 
of religious oppression, a grand manifestation of 
the opposite principle should be invoked, and that 
freedom of conscience should be strongly affirmed as 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 321 

the sole condition of true progress, and, above all, as 
the sole consecration of eternal right. But to try, 
under the name of independent morality, to proclaim 
the abdication of God, or at least of the religious 
idea, in the bosom of a tumultuous assembly where 
no free and many-sided discussion would be pos- 
sible, was to trench on the Council, and oppose 
violence of language to ecclesiastical authority. The 
Assembly was so little disposed to enter reasonable 
paths, that it thought the doctrinal programme sub- 
mitted to it insufficient ; another was proposed which 
ventured much further into questions of principle ; 
they wished the anti-council to decree a full system 
of psychology, or rather, an atheistic anthropology. 
It was on this point that discussion arose in such 
wordy vehemence as hindered any issue. On the 
morrow it was to have been cheerfully resumed, when 
the French delegates, who had been hindered 
by a stormy passage, arrived. Hardly were they in 
the hall, before they thought it their chief business 
to indulge in such violent political assaults that no 
theoretical discussion could be resumed. They cried, 
Down with the Emperor Napoleon and long live the 
Republic — a fine way of showing their gratitude to 
the liberal monarchy that accorded them its hospi- 
tality. The Italian Government could not possibly 
allow an allied power to be tranquilly insulted in a 
great public assembly. I think they were perfectly 
right, and that the deputies who invoked the great 
principle of liberty in the Italian Parliament against 
the measures determined on at Naples were entirely 
mistaken. The anti-council closed amid tumult and 
public laughter, to the great joy of its mighty rival 

of the Yatican. If it was meant merely to produce 

21 



322 Eome, Italy, and the Council. 

a caricature, it has succeeded ; it is a Punch or 
Charivari success. Such follies comfort the authori- 
tative powers, and fling into their arms, or at their 
feet, all timid souls who see freedom only in the 
hideous guise of license. Yet the cardinals and bish- 



ops would be wrong in laughing too much ; the anti- 
council at Naples was, I grant, a completely absurd 
display ; but there is another anti-council which will 
not be so easily dissolved, and which is held wherever 
men think, study, or love freedom; it is the anti- 
council of public opinion, which reverses the decrees 
of the Yatican, or rather, lets them fall to the ground 
like the dead leaves of an old tree which is soon to be 
dissolved in dust. This anti-council has an ardent and 
passionate left, w 7 hich has flung itself into the extremes 
of incredulity through the exaggerations and follies 
of the Papacy. The Bull of Excommunication which 
T summed up for you yesterday, does much more harm 
to Catholicism than all the follies of the meeting at 
Naples to the cause of free thought. The Holy 
Father hastened to furnish the latter a consolation 
and an encouragement in his famous motu jpvojprio, 
which only too clearly foreshadows the path in which 
the Council will pursue its labors. We may consider 
its opening phase terminated. I leave Rome to-day, 
rich in memories, and knowing better than ever what 
we are to expect of the religious form that has been 
elaborated here. The future will show whether I 
have been mistaken in my anticipations of the issue 
of the Council. I do not think so ; the triumph of 
Ultramontanism may be more or less disguised, more 
or less equivocal ; it is certain. How can we doubt 
this when we read the list of bishops named for 
the two great Committees on Faith and Discipline? 



Kome, Italy, and the Council. 323 

Though the Liberals are not excluded, the fanatics 
triumph. The curtain may fall on this first act of 
the comedy — its upshot is known. 

Florence, December 23, 1869. 
It is in the capital of New Italy that I close these 
letters, which, written at Paris, would lose their true 
character, and no longer answer their design. I have 
witnessed a very interesting session of the Senate of 
the kingdom, in which the new ministry appealed to 
the confidence of the Parliament in demanding a 
provisional vote which would authorize them to col- 
lect the imposts until the reopening of the Chambers. 
Signor Lariza, the Premier, whose bearing is that 
of a simple and serious man, pronounced the truth 
of the situation in saying, u The discontent of Italy 
is not political, but administrative and financial." 
It is certain that the country is not tempted to sur- 
render its reconstituted unity, and that it does not 
long for the humiliating yoke of foreigners. But it 
is succumbing under its deficit, arising as much from 
excessive expenses as, from bad administration, from 
the absence of regularity and uprightness in paying 
the taxes. The embarrassments of Italy fill the 
Monsignori of Pome with the liveliest joy ; they do 
not percieve that the moral side of these difficulties 
comes from the education which Papal Catholicism 
has given this lively, supple, and intelligent nation, 
which, however, lacks that solidity which conscience 
alone communicates. For my part, I earnestly desire 
that the Italian government may undertake serious 
and radical measures of economy, which alone will 
prevent the shame of bankruptcy and save the national 
honor. To support these, it needs to find sustained 



324: Kome, Italy, and the Council. 

devotion in the nation, and the abandonment of that 
carelessness, that fatal ease in deceiving the authori- 
ties and defrauding them of their due, as though they 
had not the same rights as an individual toward 
whom one is bound by a contract. Tou see that 
every thing, even finance, brings us round to the 
great aspect of things. 

The information which I have received at Florence 
on the progress of evangelization does not differ from 
what I transmitted to you from Naples. The work 
of the Gospel proceeds calmly and with seriousness, 
but without noise, except at Venice, where it has in 
its favor the prestige of novelty. In Florence, the 
Yaudois Church has a truly magnificent establish- 
ment, which it owes, if I am not mistaken, to the gen- 
erosity of the Free Church of Scotland. It occupies 
the Salveati Palace, formerly occupied by a cardinal, 
who surely did not dream of having such successors. 
There is found a theological faculty which has thirty 
students, and a church where a hundred persons as- 
semble. The nets have evidently been flung faith- 
fully into the sea, but the miraculous draught has not 
taken place. The movement has remained quite 
restricted; the Italian nation has not been really 
touched. Were it simply a matter of controversy — 
should we confine ourselves merely to provoking op- 
position to Eome — we might have great and prompt 
popularity, but the results would be purely negative. 
For myself, I remain convinced that, as I have al- 
ready written you, Italy, as well as France and all 
the Latin races, will only awaken to true religious 
life under the breath of tempests ; that the bitter ex- 
periment of the impossibility of dispensing with God 
must be carried through to the end, and that suffer- 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 325 

ing and trial will alone prepare the way for the di- 
vine Healer. I think also that the reformatory 
movement must proceed from the very bosom of these 
nations, and bear no marks of foreign importation. 
No doubt it will be connected with the glorious 
movement of the sixteenth century, whose principles 
are immortal ; but it will apply these principles in its 
own way, and according to the needs of the nations 
whence it shall emanate. What the Italy of to-day 
needs is a second Savonarola, more free from Catholic 
traditions, more lay without the frock, but with the 
same fire and intrepidity of speech. 

This name of Savonarola now fills my heart and 
mind. He is certainly the purest glory of Florence. 
I experienced great and holy emotions in the Con- 
vent of San Marco, which is all permeated with his 
memory, after having been adorned as a mystic sanc- 
tuary by the brush of Fra Angelico, who has left on 
these immortal frescos the perfume of his prayers. 
Savonarola lives again under our eyes in the admi- 
rable portrait of Fra Bartolomeo, his beloved disciple, 
and at the same time one of the greatest artists of the 
Renaissance. The figure of the great Florentine Re- 
former is lean and sorrowful ; we feel that he is con- 
sumed by inward fires — devoured by his desire of 
establishing the reign of Jesus Christ. A plaster 
cast of him produces perhaps a more puissant impres- 
sion, such immense sadness and ardent faith does it 
express. It was in this little cell that he prepared his 
sublime harangues which moved the entire city, and 
which, for a moment, succeeded in throwing it into a 
species of ascetic fervor which could not endure : the 
reaction was terrible. A profound mystery hovers 
over the end of Savonarola ; we have only the report 



326 Rome, Italy, and the Council. 

of the inquisitors who tortured him, and boasted of 
having led him to a retraction. And yet he mounted 
the pyre and died the death of John Huss. The Pa- 
pacy was glad to have done with this inconvenient 
John the Baptist, wdio scourged her brilliant vices 
when she was heading the dissolute courts of Europe. 
Savonarola has not the angelical sweetness of Saint 
Francis ; he is a man of conflict, an indomitable wit- 
ness of the thrice holy God; it was needful that such 
a man should be put to death, like all importunate 
prophets who cannot bend to the proprieties of the 
world and the Church. Let us hope that in our days 
he will have a successor in this land which he so 
greatly loved, and that, in presence of the excesses of 
Romish idolatry, we shall see, not a simple tribune, 
but a great servant of Jesus Christ arise and pro- 
nounce the word of life which shall resound in the 
depths of the heart. 

Atheistic declamations, like those which have just 
given ns the comedy at Naples — Rome might pay 
for such, for they do but consolidate her power. She 
will ever be right against impiety; but the true Chris- 
tian, who asks no glory of the earth, who would only 
serve the truth and combat error and sin, he is her 
redoubtable adversary. Let such a Christian appear 
with the gift to move the multitudes, and that art, 
which is not to be learned, of pronouncing aloud the 
w r ord that is hidden in the heart of a generation, and 
we shall see what the most sonorous anathemas can 
do against him. The times of Luther and Calvin 
would return, and the w T orld would learn that the 
Christian sap, far from being exhausted under the 
bark of its century-old tree, is more generous and 
vital than ever. Let us beseech God speedily to raise 



Rome, Italy, and the Council. 327 

up one of those great heroes of the faith called Re- 
formers in the bosom of our old nationalities, which 
need a new inspiration. Let us hope that the Coun- 
cil, by its exaggerations in Ultramontanism, and the 
atheistic anti-council, which is held every-where, by 
its sad blasphemies may prepare the way for the 
blessed advent of this new era of evangelical liberty ; 
but let us not forget that great servants of God speak 
in the name of all Churches, and that they are in 
some sort the children of their prayers. Who shall 
say how many sighs and tears shed in secret before 
God have preceded those glorious and fruitful hours 
of religious history which are fair as the morning 
dawn of the great day of the Lord ! 

E. de Pressense. 



THE END. 



Woi\KS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



I. 

Jesus Christ : His Times, Life, and Work. 

Translated by Annie Harwood. 12mo., pp. 496. $3 75. 

One of the most valuable additions to Christian literature which the 
present generation has seen. — Contemporary Review. 

M. de Pressense is not only brilliant and epigrammatic, but his sen- 
tences flow on from page to page with a sustained eloquence which 
nevur wearies the reader. The life of Christ is more dramatically 
unfolded in this volume than in any other work with which we are 
acquainted . — Spectator. 

The successive scenes and teachings of onr Lord's life are told with 
a scholarly accurac} T and a glowing and devout eloquence which are 
well presented to the English reader in Miss Harwood's admirable 
translation. — British Quarterly Review. 

The work of an able and excellent author, whose appreciation of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, both in his person and in his work, is at once pro- 
found and discriminating, and whom no doubts or difficulties hinder 
from claiming the honor due to the Name that is above every name. 
In point of learning, intellectual power, and that charm of brilliancy of 
diction for which the French language is so remarkable when wielded by 
a master, the merit of this work is remarkably high. — Sunday Magazine. 

Its arguments are sound, clear, and well illustrated. Of its learning 
there can be but one opinion, as its pages every -where abound with the 
results of thorough, well-digested, and extensive research. — The Rock. 

It is a book eminently adapted to be useful. — Christian Work. 

II. 

The Mystery of Suffering, and Other Discourses. 
New Edition. 

In these sermons we recognize the same intellectual power, the same 
exquisite felicity of diction, the same sustained and dignified eloquence, 
and the same persuasive invigorating Christian thought which are con- 
spicuous in that work— ["Jesus Christ: His Times," etc.]— British 
and, Foreign Evangelical Review. 

... The tone of the discourses is so tenderly beautiful that a reader 
who did not believe one word of the Christian mysteries might be 
affected by it. — London Review. 

Sermons brimming up and running over with truth and beauty. — 

Weekly Review. 

These are very remarkable discourses. They are distinguished by 
all the nice analysis of thought and glow of feeling so characteristic of 
Dr. Pressense's ministry and writings.— Evangelical Magazine. 

A volume of beautiful and thoroughly Christian sermons. — London 

Quarterly Review. 

They are not ordinary sermons, but replete with valuable thoughts, 
often beautifully expressed, and are characterized hv true pathos and 
holy unction.— United Methodist Free Church Maqazine. 



Works by the Same Author 



III. 

The Church and the French Revolution, 

A History of the Eelations of Church and State from 1789 
to 1802. In crown 8vo. 

M. de Pressense is well known and deservedly respected as one of 
the leading divines of the Evangelical section of the Freoch Protestant 
Church. He is a learned theologian, and a man of cultivated and lib- 
eral mind. In the present monograph he comes before us as the his- 
torian of a period which he rightly judges to have a more than local 
and temporary interest in the fortunes of the national Church of France. 
And, on the whole, he has done his work not only ably, but impar- 
tially. . . . We are not aware that any previous writer has treated the 
subject from the purely ecclesiastical point of view. — Saturday Review. 



IV. 

Early Years of Christianity. 

Translated by Annie Harwood. 12mo. 

This is a sequel to Dr. Pressense' s celebrated book on the " Life, 
Work, and Times of Jesus Christ." We may say at once that, to the 
bulk of liberal Christians, Dr. Pressense's achievement will be very 
val u able . — A thenczum. 

De Pressense tells the glorious narrative with singular force and 
clearness of expression. — British Quarterly Review. 

The great theme on which he has labored with the utmost earnest- 
ness and zeal suffers no loss of color or life. He holds his brilliant 
intellectual gifts and his profound learning subordinate to his fervent 
and absolute faith in the divinity of his Lord and Saviour ; but he is 
well entitled to our credit when he declares that the feeling which has 
inspired the book has laid no fetters on his freedom of examination. — 
Daily Telegraph. 

It is impossible to part from these graphic and learned representa- 
tions of the purest ages of Christianity without a deep reverence for 
the ability of the author as a scholar, and his zealous advocacy of the 
truth as a Christian. — The Rock. 



V. 

The Land of the Gospel: 

Notes of a Journey in the East. 

He gives us his first and freshest impressions as entered in his 
journal upon the spot; and these will be found full of interest, 
especially to every thoughtful reader of the New Testament. — Evan- 
gelical Christendom. 



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